Timothy
Kinnit has just about everything going for him. Adopted as a baby into a
wealthy family, he’s just finished Oxford. He’s in love with Julia Laurell, a
beautiful young woman whose father is a major manufacturer (and wealthy). Tim
and Julia are right on the verge of eloping.
And then
the world turns upside down. Tim had always believed he was the illegitimate son
of a Kinnit, and that turns out not to be the case. He goes looking for where
he came from, and gets beaten up by a private detective. There appears to be a
connection to the trashing of an apartment in the area of east London where Tim
was likely born. And then the detective agency finds itself the victim of arson,
and Tim is the prime suspect.
Enter
Superintendent Charles Luke of Scotland Yard. And enter amateur detective
Albert Campion.
In The
China Governess, Golden Age mystery writer Margery Allingham (1904-1966)
mixes an eccentric family, secrets buried in the past, disguised identities, a
murder or two, and romance (it’s not an Allingham mystery novel without
romance). The result is a fast-paced, entertaining mystery.
 |
| Margery Allingham |
First
published in 1963, three years before Allingham’s death, and set in the early
1960s, The China Governess isn’t the kind of English country manor murder
mystery so popular during the Golden Age (1920s-1940s). There’s only one short scene
that actually occurs in the country, and that happens early in the book. Most
of the action is centered in London, which is still rebuilding after the blitz
of 1940-1941. There are still relics of earlier houses, however, and the
Kinnits’ Well House is one of them.
It’s an
Albert Campion mystery, and Campion is the sleuth that helped make Allingham
famous in her own lifetime. But the character who steals the show is Mrs.
Broome, something of the housekeeper for the Kinnits’ country home who comes to
London to help out at Well House. Almost Dickensian in character, Mrs. Broome
is alternately funny, insightful, forgetful, and always highly protective. She
is one of Allingham’s great characters.
The China Governess is a great treat, demonstrating
that Allingham lost none of her detective writing abilities in her later books.
Related:
The
Beckoning Lady by Margery Allingham
Top photograph: a London cul-de-sac
much like the setting of Well House in
The China Governess.
1 comment:
Sounds great. I think you've finally convinced me to try this author.
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