Mr Campion's Fox by Mike Ripley reviewed by Julia Jones

With Mr Campion's Fox Mike Ripley is flying solo. His previous novel, Mr Campion's Farewell, took its starting point from a fragment left by Margery Allingham's husband Pip Youngman Carter who died in 1969. It was, however very little more than a starting point and Ripley's experience and professionalism (as well as his long-standing appreciation for Allingham's work) enabled him to pick up the threads of the Allingham world and produce a lively and humorous continuation. With Mr Campion's Fox he offers more of the same, though this time he shifts the location to a bleak little village on the Suffolk coast which has overtones of Allingham's Mystery Mile (1930) or even her more controversial late work The Mind Readers (1965)

I would guess that Ripley would prefer the comparison to the earlier work. Mystery Mile is one of those books that Allingham herself described as 'plum-puddings' – a joyous receptacle into which to cram every morsel of fun, in-jokes and topical allusions to create novels which are entertaining romps rather than exercises in cerebration or suspense-filled thrillers. Ripley's new larger-than-life figures such as the Sisters Mister or smoke-weathered Eppy Mussett fit well into this category. There's plenty of humour, of course, and inconspicuous Allinghamesque touches such as the village policeman's tendency to lapse into a broad Suffolk accent when he senses things are not going well for him.

The Suffolk coastal location is (for me) a major pleasure of the novel. Gapton Spit is a long stretch of shingle that has extended over the centuries to choke off the village from the sea and transform what had been a thriving small port into a backwater centred round a single pub and a traditional small brewery. (Ripley excels in writing about beer.) There's always another aspect to the East Coast of England, facing as it does across the North Sea to potentially hostile countries. Gapton Spit had been the site of a WW2 listening post and now, in the 1960s Cold War period, the ministry of Defence may be renewing its interest. Not for nothing does Ripley name his new spy-master L.C. Deighton.

The decision to remain in the period where Margery Allingham and Pip Youngman Carter left off was probably an inevitable one. It has its difficulties as Albert Campion approaches his seventies and has already, rather too frequently, talked of his retirement. In Mr Campion's Fox Ripley makes good use of the elderly detective's younger (and anyway ageless) wife. Allingham's fans had a tendency to grumble that she never allowed them enough of the slender, red-haired aeronautical engineer Lady Amanda Fitton. This latest novel has her fully involved from the moment of her first appearance at an ambassadorial reception. She is dressed in a 'black velvet figure-hugging tuxedo suit, the white blouse with Peter Pan collar and cuffs and the square-toed heeled boots peeping out from beneath fashionably wide flares' and she positions herself at her husband's side 'with the smoothness of a closing Rolls Royce door without the accompanying thunderous click.' We soon learn that the suit is an Yves Saint Laurent. If you like a bit of proper class with your detection, Lady Amanda is for you.

And, whether or not you're already an Allingham fan, if you enjoy a re-immersement in the world of eight-track stereos and mini-skirts 'no wider than a blacksmith's belt', without too much overt violence or emotional excruciation, then Mr Campion's Fox is most certainly for you.

Mr Campion' Farewell by Mike Ripley reviewed by Julia Jones

This would have been the third 'posthumous' Campion novel to have been written by Pip Youngman Carter, widower of the late, great, Margery Allingham. Allingham died in 1966 having completed eighteen varied mystery novels and a number of short stories which star the enigmatic detective Albert Campion. Campion had been created in the late 1920s by Allingham and Youngman Carter in the early days of their marriage. Allingham presented him as “the private joke-figure of we smarter youngsters” and gave her husband generous credit “for encouraging the humour which until then I had always tried to keep out of my work.”

Allingham dictated those early stories: Youngman Carter wrote them down. It was not long, however, before he found more amusing ways to spend his time while she became more serious and more personal in her approach to her novels and to her detective. “As the only life I had to give anyone was my own,” she wrote, “we became very close as time went by.” The character of Campion developed: the novels became less obviously funny, they became richer, darker, odder, more varied and more plangent.

Allingham continued to value her husband's opinion and liked to present the two of them publicly as partners in an “art-and fiction factory”. This was not often true. Nevertheless they were joint directors of a limited company and, when Allingham died, Youngman Carter's immediate task was to complete The Cargo of Eagles, her work in progress. He continued with his own two titles, Mr Campion's Farthing and Mr Campion's Falcon (both recently republished by Ostara) and, when he died in 1969, he left the beginnings of a third. Campion novel. It was no more than a fragment with no indication of character development or plot outline and it is this that Mike Ripley has taken up and completed – admirably.

There's something nasty brewing in the historic wool town of Lindsay Carfax and Superintendent Luke of the C I D persuades his old friend Campion to go down and take a look. Ripley identifies Lindsay Carfax with the Suffolk town of Lavenham and obviously relishes building up the subterranean geography of the place as well as a cast of variously unpleasant, untrustworthy and unstable characters. He claims, modestly, to be following Youngman Carter rather than Allingham herself but he's a more experienced and assured novelist than Youngman Carter ever was. He permits himself a wider range of characters, including (rather daringly) Campion's wife, the flame-haired Lady Amanda and their son, Rupert, with his young wife Perdita, one of Youngman Carter's own new characters. I have my doubts about the self-consciously thespian Rupert and Perdita but can't quibble at all with Ripley's decision to use them for the more physically adventurous chapters of the investigation.

Mr Campion is not longer young. In 1958 Allingham herself wrote a mock interview with Albert Campion in which she identified some of the problems facing an ageing series detective.

“My dear girl,” he said […] How can I?”

“Can you what?” […]

“Hop about. Pull guns and shoot lines […] I mean everyone knows how old I am. You saw to that, fixing it at the same age as the century so we shouldn't get muddled.”

Mr Campion's Farewell is set in the late 1960s / early 70s – the time that it would have been published had Youngman Carter lived to complete it. It has a consciously dated feel which Ripley manages well. Younger characters such Ripley's own Eliza Jane Fitton wear mini-skirts and have sex outside marriage but the seventy-year old Campion is always central to the action – much more so than he had been in most of the later Allinghams. There is no glossing over his infirmity. “He knew he was going to be too late. He was a man who could no longer keep up with his allies, let alone chase his enemies. He was too slow. He was too old.”

Unsurprisingly Ripley's publishers make the most of Allingham's name, announcing that “Margery Allingham's Albert Campion Returns”. It's a tribute to an author when their character becomes a brand. Allingham herself was a lifelong media professional. She knew about writing to an editor's or publisher's requirements to entertain readers and to make money. She called this “left-handed” writing and put her Campion short stories in this category. Her mature Campion novels were “right-handed” – motivated by a need to explore and express personal issues which went beyond the necessity to earn her living.

Youngman Carter's Albert Campion is clearly a “left-handed” creation but what about Mike Ripley's? He's a lifelong Allingham enthusiast and the process of writing a homage can be a very personal exercise in artistic exploration and self-expression. Ripley is not an admirer of the experimental Allingham (The Mind Readers for instance): he prefers the colour, the humour and the panache of early novels such as Look to the Lady and the extraordinary flair for period atmosphere which characterises The Tiger in the Smoke. These qualities are reflected in Mr Campion's Farewell and there's a depth of feeling to his portrayal of the ageing detective.

“'I came to Lindsay Carfax,” said Mr Campion, 'because I was intrigued by what sounded to be a really old-fashioned mystery, the sort of mystery that required an old fashioned adventurer.'

Mr Campion smiled his gentlest smile.

It was and I am. But both of us have had our day.”

Not a heartbeat passes before the publishers' eager announcement: Mr Campion will return in Mr Campion's Fox.

Mr Campion's Farewell was completed by Mike Ripley from an unfinished partial manuscript by Philip Youngman Carter.

Published by Severn House £19.99 1.4. 2014 Currently it's only in hardback. The paperback edition is due 28.8.2014. Currently I have no details about any Kindle edition or other eformat publication but will post information when available. (JJ)