Mr. Campion’s War

Ripley has never been better at demonstrating his ability to plausibly extrapolate from Margery Allingham’s Campion novels than in his fourth outing for her gentleman sleuth (after 2017’s Mr. Campion’s Abdication). On May 20, 1970, a black-tie dinner is held at the Dorchester hotel in London, to celebrate Albert Campion’s 70th birthday. The guests include L.C. Corkran, a retired British intelligence officer, and German Robert von Ringer, a contemporary of Campion’s at Cambridge University, intriguingly described as someone who, during WWII, tried to kill the birthday boy at least twice. Flash back to 1942 and a Nazi plot to manipulate Britain’s currency, as well as a conspiracy involving “corrupt Vichy politicians making personal profits out of government supply contracts, and the well-established Marseilles underworld.” The espionage plot line predominates, but there’s an act of violence at the Dorchester whose perpetrator must be detected. Ripley matches his faithful characterizations with witty prose (a major has a “rather plummy voice, rather like a northern rep actor trying to do Shakespeare at short notice”). Allingham aficionados will be enthralled. (Dec.)