A favorite of Margery Allingham’s – more because of the women in the book than Albert Campion.

The book starts with Albert being lured into a case – he doesn’t want a case. He has enough on his plate. But his good friend, Inspector Stanislaw Oates, lures him into a case by walking him into a park where he observes a homeless woman accepting a handout – except that she isn’t homeless. She’s a member of a storied literary family that has fallen on hard times, and so the handout is welcome.

Oates’ lure works, in part because he pairs the eccentric woman with his protégé – an inner city boy turned copper who has instinct for uncovering crime. Charlie Luke needs a win, and Oates is determined to give it to him.

So Campion moves into the home, where he meets the (seemingly) homeless woman from the park, who has made a poem out of living frugally; her older sister, who still meets with her banker in the home; their brother, who is suspiciously austere – especially with their young adult niece who is living in their home.

Their home – although their parents ran out of money and now it’s a boarding house owned by a former theatre dresser, who has taken in a handful of other eccentrics. But the problem is that family members keep dying mysteriously.

And someone has started sending poisoned pen letters implying that the family is killing itself off.

And then there’s something weird about the undertaker across the street.

The bodies keep piling up as Campion tries to figure out what is going on, and Charlie Luke puts the moves on the rebellious niece.

(Don’t worry – he doesn’t marry her. He marries a woman in another book later – which I reviewed earlier this year.)

This is Campion at his best, involving Luke and Oates and Lugg – a lot of fun.

But, to my earlier point, I enjoy the female characters the best. The youngest daughter – the seemingly homeless woman who is not homeless – her eldest sister, standing on her dignity; and the niece, so loyal and yet so trying to figure out who she is. And the evil woman who is involved in the mystery – who knows what’s going on….

Truly wonderful.