Word: allingham
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Death of an Expert Witness by P.D. James (Scribner's; $8.95). Since James, 57, is English and a woman, she is frequently hailed as a worthy successor to Christie, Sayers, Margery Allingham and Ngaio Marsh. James' knowledge of locale (in this case, East Anglia's murky, misty fen country) and contemporary mores (some pretty kinky), her familiarity with forensic science (which is what Expert's plot is mostly about) and keen psychological insight, all mark her as an original. Her seventh and best mystery novel brings back Scotland Yard's Adam Dalgliesh, who writes offbeat...
...intend to continue their Martin Beck series, the literary toll seems higher than the one in the bus. It is as if an entire family of friends were abruptly wiped out. Few thriller writers have interwoven so many good recurring characters with their plots; only the late Margery Allingham comes to mind...
...Along with TIME Book Reviewer Martha Duffy, I deplore the apparent demise of the English gentleman-detective [Feb. 1]. But I must rebut her dismissal of Dame Agatha's prose as more "careless" than Miss Allingham's. Christie people are somehow believable people whom one has met before-for good...
Lord Peter expired after a mere eleven novels, smothered by the author's love for her creation. But Allingham took a critical look at her man. By Death of a Ghost (1934), Campion had dropped his drawl and the pose of an amateur adventurer and become a professional detective. He acquired a wife and child and a manservant, who had been a cat burglar until he put on weight...
...small part of the Allingham charm is her chariness with detail. Where Sayers gorges the reader with information about Lord Peter's mulish family and elegant tastes, Allingham drops only a few facts per book. In Police at the Funeral, for instance, the reader learns that Mr. Campion loathes and suppresses his Christian name, Rudolph, which makes it all the more astonishing to discover-eleven books later-that he has called his own son Rupert. Gradually, too, as the series progresses, a caste of semiregulars assembles: the policemen Gates and Luke, the trouble-prone Faraday clan, Sister Val. Perhaps...