“Deadly Duo” by Margery Allingham

Golden Age mystery writer Margery Allingham (1904-1966) didn’t just write Albert Campion detective stories. While she’s best known for the Campion novels, she also produced an array of other mystery stories with varying detectives, heroes, and heroines.

Deadly Duo, first published in 1949, includes two non-Campion novellas.

In “Wanted: Someone Innocent,” Gillian Brayton is a young woman not long out of school who works fort rather sub-standard wages for a milliner.  At a retirement event for her old school’s headmistress, she meets Rita Fayre, an alum several years older than Gillian. Rita offers the young girl an attractive position on the spot, to become a kind of companion. Rita is vague about her duties, and unsuspecting Gillian, desperately in need of income, accepts.

The reader gets suspicious as soon as Gillian arrives at the Fayre country home, even if Gillian herself seems a bit naïve. She discovers she’s to be a companion for Rita’s convalescing husband Julian. But things more nefarious are underfoot.

In “Last Act,” Margot Robert is a young actress, French by birth but living in England. She’s returning from a rather triumphant theater tour in the United States, looking forward to seeing her family dominated by her adopted mother, Madame Zoffany, herself a former actress and known to the family as Zoff. Gillian had been engaged to one of Zoff’s grandsons, Victor; she has broken the engagement because she has fallen in love with the other grandson, Denis.

Margery Allingham

The family get-together has all the markings for fireworks and mayhem, and mayhem certainly ensues – Zoff is found dead in her bed, murdered. At times during the investigation, virtually all of the family members, servants, and various hangers-on are suspects; all except for Margot have a motive.

Allingham almost always manages to include a bit of romance in her novels, and these two novellas are no exception. But they’re not romantic stories or romances; Allingham was in the serious business of writing murder mysteries, and the romance is always a secondary consideration.

Deadly Duo is a fun read, exemplifying Allingham, at her non-Campion best.

Related:

Margery Allingham’s The Case of the Late Pig.

Margery Allingham’s Flowers for the Judge.

Margery Allingham’s Death of a Ghost.

Margery Allingham’s Black Plumes.

Margery Allingham’s Look to the Lady.

Margery Allingham’s Police at the Funeral.

The Essential Margery Allingham Collection.

Margery Allingham Box Set #2.

The Margery Allingham Society.

 Photograph: Audley End in Essex, UK, by Geoff Doggett via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. The English country house is like those in the two novellas that comprise Deadly Duo.

“A Path Revealed” by Carlen Maddux

In 1997, Carlen Maddux was a journalist and editor and working on a newly launched business journalism venture. His wife Martha was active in local Florida politics and had herself been elected to the St. Petersburg City Council. They had three children, two in their 20s and the youngest still at home in high school.

That year, the Maddux family learned that Martha, at age 50, had early onset Alzheimer’s Disease. The forgetfulness had been noticed by the family for some time, but it could have been attributable to the rather hectic schedule Martha kept. What Carlen had really noticed was her failure to grasp a question in a political debate – that had never happened before.

And so, Carlen and Martha, both raised Protestant, went searching for how to deal with what was happening, and what would continue to happen. What they would find themselves embarking upon was a spiritual journey, and it would become a different spiritual journey for each of them.

A Path Revealed: How Hope, Love and Joy Found Us Deep in a Maze Called Alzheimer’s is Carlen’s account of those journeys. It would lead them to resources outside their own Protestant faith, primarily because other faith traditions have been in existence longer and have a deeper understanding of suffering.

Carlen Maddux

This is a journey about pain and suffering, and how God found both Carlen and Martha in the midst of it. They learn much about themselves, and about the need for forgiveness. And they learn to find God in the middle of a disease that destroys memory and personality.

A Path Revealed is a story about a dreaded disease, and it is also a story about hope. The Madduxes have to face pain, anger, frustration, exhaustion, and everything else that comes with Alzheimer’s. But they learn how to face it with love, hope, and courage. You know how the story ends, but you don’t know how two people got to that ending.

It’s a story that will reduce you to tears and lift your heart.

Photograph by Rajesh Misra via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Down to dirt

After Philippians 2:5-11

He descended to dirt,

earth that smelled of rot

and green and life and

death, downward he came,

calloused hands and

dirty nails, hands

of a servant,

working first with words,

working with minds,

working with hearts.

Carpenter and cross:

his life bracketed by wood,

he became a king.

Photograph by Radu Pasca via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission.

Saturday Good Reads

Poems have been recorded (audio and video) thousands of times. But to show how one art – film – can create an almost wholly new understand of a familiar form, see what The Passion Film Company did with “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.” (And there was a lot of good and interesting poetry this week.)

Like it does every year, the Morgan Library in New York has the original manuscript of A Christmas Carol on display. The Dickens House Museum in London has an exhibition about Catherine Hogarth, the wife of Dickens who bore all of his children and whom he eventually pushed away. And Historic UK has an interesting story about Dickens and ghosts.

A Dilbert cartoon from 26 years ago may have predicted the winner of the 2016 presidential election. And the alleged involvement of the Russians.

Wonderful photographs, intriguing “blue jean” art, and Carrie Underwood and Michael W. Smith singing “All is Well.”

A Merry Christmas to all! And God bless us, every one!

Poetry

Love is Like – Robert Rife at Altarwork.

A Family Gathering – Carri Makin at Curator Magazine.

10 Tips on Titles for a poem or poetry book – Mary Harwell Sayler at The Poetry Editor.

For the Children of War – Ana Lisa de Jong.

Dana Gioia – D.S. Martin at Kingdom Poets.

Differences in Design – Chris Galford.

The Nature of Love – Aaron Belz.

T.S. Eliot’s ‘Prufrock’ on Film – via Maureen Doallas at Writing Without Paper. And Australian actor Daniel Henshall talks about his love for the poem.

Let It Be: An Advent Poem – Sandra Heska King.

Writing

How to Write and Deliver a Great Speech – Simon Lancaster at Professionally Speaking.

Christmas

The Best Christmas Lights – Doug Spurling at Spurling Silver.

Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol on View at the Morgan to Jan. 8 – Antiques and the Arts Weekly.

Putting Christmas Back in Christ – Hannah Ploegstra at GoThereFor (Hat Tip: Tim Challies).

Art and Photography

Eastman Kodak Building – Chris Naffziger at St. Louis Patina.

These aren’t paintings. They’re collages made out of blue jeans – Diana Shi at The Creator’s Project.

In Fronds – Tim Good at National Geographic Your Shot.

Raw nature in all its beauty: Photographer of the Year winners – National Geographic (via BBC).

Faith

A Day in God’s House in the 1850s – James Faris at Gentle Reformation.

Meeting Christ in community – Peter’s story – The Community St. Anselm.

British Stuff

London 1924 and 2014 – a hybrid video – Londontopia.

A Dickens of a Good Ghost Story – Historic UK.

The forgotten wife of Charles Dickens (Hat Tip: Janet Young).

You need to go back to school to learn English – Lennox Morrison at BBC. (Hat Tip: J of India).

Life and Culture

A Dilbert cartoon from 26 years ago – Scott Adams.

Carrie Underwood and Michael W. Smith Sing “All is Well”

Illustration: Old Man Reading, lithograph by Thomas Hart Benton.