November 23, 2025 • 48 mins
Tea, Tonic & Toxin is a history of mystery book club and podcast. We’re reading the best mysteries ever written and interviewing some of the world’s best contemporary mystery and thriller writers.
Traitor’s Purse (1940) by Margery Allingham is a mystery thriller classic that masterfully combines psychological tension with a high-stakes plot. Suffering from amnesia, amateur sleuth Albert Campion races to stop a wartime national security threat.
Known for its psychological depth, the book blends espionage with a classic whodunit. Allingham’s exploration of identity, loyalty, and duty cements the book’s status as a timeless classic in the genre.
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Mike Ripley joins Tea, Tonic & Toxin to discuss Margery Allingham’s Albert Campion novels, along with his latest novel in the series, Mr Campion’s Christmas.
Mike Ripley completed the third Albert Campion novel left unfinished on the death of Pip Youngman Carter (Margery Allingham’s husband) in 1969. Mr Campion’s Farewell was published in 2014, and Mike has continued the Campion series annually with the twelfth and final book in the series, Mr Campion’s Christmas, appearing in 2024.
Mike Ripley joined Carolyn Daughters and Sarah Harrison to discuss the Margery Allingham Campion novels and his latest book in the series, Mr Campion’s Christmas.
Mike is the author of 28 novels, including the award-winning ‘Angel’ series of comedy thrillers and one of the few authors to win the Crime Writers’ Last Laugh Award twice. From 1989 to 2008, he was a crime fiction critic for The Daily Telegraph and then The Birmingham Post, reviewing more than 950 crime novels. He co-edited three volumes of Fresh Blood stories by new British writers, including Ian Rankin, Lee Child, Ken Bruen, Charlie Higson, and Christopher Brookmyre. He was also a scriptwriter on the BBC’s series Lovejoy.
Mike Ripley completed the third Albert Campion novel left unfinished on the death of Pip Youngman Carter (husband of Margery Allingham) in 1969. Mr Campion’s Farewell was published in the UK and the US in 2014, and Mike has continued the Campion series annually with the twelfth and final book in the series, Mr Campion’s Christmas, appearing in 2024.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sarah Harrison (00:24):
Welcome to Tea, Tonic and Toxin, a book club and
podcast for anyone who wants toexplore the best mysteries and
thrillers ever written. I'm yourhost Sarah Harrison.
Carolyn Daughters (00:35):
And I'm your host Carolyn Daughters. Pour
yourself a cup of tea, a gin andtonic, but not a toxin, and join
us on a journey through 19th and20th century mysteries and
thrillers, every one of them agame changer.
Sarah Harrison (00:57):
Today's sponsor is Carolyn Daughters. Carolyn
runs game changing corporatebrand therapy workshops, teaches
Online Marketing Boot Campcourses, and leads persuasive
(01:20):
writing workshops. Carolynempowers startups, small
businesses, enterpriseorganizations and government
agencies to win hearts, minds,deals and dollars. You can learn
more at carolyndaughters.com.
Carolyn, we have such a coolguest today.
Carolyn Daughters (01:41):
We do. I'm very excited about it. We got we
got up early for this one.
Sarah Harrison (01:45):
We did. Our guest is at a little bit of a
distance from us. We have MikeRipley all the way from ...
where are you calling from?
Mike Ripley (01:54):
Mike East Anglia, outside of London in England.
Sarah Harrison (01:59):
In England, awesome, our international,
fabulous guest today, MikeRipley. We're really excited to
talk to him about his book.
Carolyn Daughters (02:11):
About all, all 12 of the books, actually,
and also about, generallyspeaking, Margery Allingham.
We're discussing MargeryAllingham, the Albert Campion
canon, and his involvement inthat.
(02:39):
Mike Ripley is the author of 28novels, including the
award-winning Angel series ofcomedy thrillers, and one of the
few authors to win the CrimeWriters Last Laugh award twice.
Mike Ripley (02:50):
Three times, three times.
Sarah Harrison (02:53):
How did we get this incorrect bio?
Mike Ripley (02:55):
I won again last week.
Sarah Harrison (02:59):
Oh, congratulations!
Carolyn Daughters (03:00):
For Mr.
Champion's Christmas. From 1989to 2008 he was a crime fiction
critic for The Daily Telegraphand then The Birmingham Post,
reviewing more than 950 crimenovels. That's a lot of crime
novels. He co-edited threevolumes of fresh blood stories
(03:20):
by new British writers includingIan Rankin, Lee Child, Ken
Bruin, Charlie Higson, andChristopher Brookmeyer. He was
also a script writer on the BBCseries Lovejoy. Mike Ripley
completed the third AlbertCampion novel, left unfinished
on the death of Pip YoungmanCarter, who was the husband of
(03:40):
Margery Allingham in 1969. Mr.
Campion's Farewell was publishedin the UK and the US in 2014
,and Mike has continued theCampion series annually with the
12th and final book in theseries, Mr. Campion's Christmas
appearing in 2024. Described byThe Times as England's funniest
(04:02):
crime writer, Mike is arespected critic of crime
fiction, writing for TheGuardian, Daily Telegraph, and
The Times. He writes the monthlyGetting Away with Murder column
on Shots magazine. He was aseries editor of the Astera
crime and top notch thrillerimprints, rescuing and reviving
more than 100 crime novels andthrillers that didn't deserve to
(04:25):
be forgotten. He also becameknown as the unofficial
historian of the Britishthriller after the publication
of Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, whichwon the 2018 HRF Keating award
for nonfiction. Welcome, Mike.
That's quite a bio you havethere. That's awesome.
Mike Ripley (04:42):
Well, I think that's all we have time for,
isn't it?
Carolyn Daughters (04:44):
And that wraps up this episode, which was
a brilliant episode. We shared alot of information. It was a
good conversation.
Sarah Harrison (04:55):
Mike, I was so excited when I found you on the
internet. We read Traitor'sPurse as part of our podcast,
and we were looking around forfolks to interview about Margery
Allingham, and you were one ofthe most unique people in that
you had continued her work,which I thought was amazing. So
(05:19):
we are really excited to talk toyou, especially about that
angle, but I want to go back towhere you got started with
Allingham. How did you find herfirst book? What was it? What
was the read like?
Mike Ripley (05:33):
Well, my first encounter with her was in the
year she died, actually, 1966. Iwas living in Cambridge. I was
not at the university, but I wasjust living in the town. But I
(05:54):
knew a professor at theuniversity who read detective
stories all the time, and herecommended Margery Allingham to
me, and the first couple AlbertCampion books, I think, were
Sweet Danger and Mystery Mile.
They were what were known as herthrillers, rather than whodunits
and I was hooked. I justthought, great. I'd never heard
(06:15):
of this woman, and because thenI tried to find out about her,
and found she'd died that year.
So I read what I what I could,but I always remembered that in
mystery mile, there's a map atthe front of the book which
shows the island of mysterymile, and it's connected to the
(06:37):
mainland by a thing called thestrood, right, which is like a
causeway. And few years later,when I'd been I'd been to
university, and so I was lookingfor a job, and I saw a job
advertised at the University ofEssex, which I got. And so I was
(06:58):
looking around for places tolive. So I got a map out, and I
saw this island off the Essexcoast, suspiciously like the one
in mystery mile, and it wasconvict connected to the
mainland by a causeway calledthe strood What? So I thought,
(07:19):
This is fate. I can rememberthis, so I must. I never
actually got to live on theisland, which is called Mersey
island, but I've been there alot, but I live quite close, and
so did Margery Allingham. And sothat was my connection with
Allingham and I've always lived,coincidentally, about 10 miles
(07:41):
from where they did. So that wasmy answer. I knew who she was
when I moved down to Allinghamcountry, where I've lived now
for a long time, more than 40years. And so I was always
interested, and I became amember of the Margery Allingham
society, and it was at a meetingof that society in 2010 I think,
(08:09):
and I was giving a talk aboutsomething or other. And somebody
mentioned in passing the thirdyoung man, Carter novel. And I
said there were three now, whoknew? Because I didn't. I read
the two that he'd written, andthey said, Yes, he'd started a
(08:31):
third novel and then died, andit had been left to the Margery
Allingham Society in the will ofMargery Allingham's sister. So I
said, Can I have a look at it?
And has anybody ever tried tofinish it? And they said, Well,
this Albert Campion book was abit of a mess, and it was like
three, four chapters and noplots, no plan, nothing their
(08:52):
characters or anything. But Iwas intrigued, because the
opening chapter was set in fromthe description I knew the
place, the town in Suffolkcalled Lavenham, which I knew
very well and recognizedimmediately. And so I thought,
Well, as I know that, I can seewhere he was going with one or
(09:16):
two things, and as I'll have ago. And that became Mr.
Campion's Farewell. The farewellbit being that he was going to
retire from being a detectivebecause, as because he was
getting well, he would be 68 or69 by then. But farewell means
nothing in publishing. Andanother 11 books follow. But
(09:39):
anyway, I had great fun doingit, and wrote it as if it was
set in the late 1960s whenAlbert Campion would have been
60-69, to and but it wasinitially I was doing as a one
off, but before it waspublished, the. Publisher, the
man who owned the publishingcompany, said to me, who was a
(10:02):
great Allingham fan, said,What's the next one? I said,
Well, I've just retired him. AndI said, but you haven't killed
him, so that's okay. Let's doanother. So Mr. Campion's Fox
followed that, and then the restfollowed after that. But I said
Mr. Campion's Christmas will bethe last one, because I think 12
(10:26):
is enough, and to do more thanMargery Allingham did would be
incredibly rude. And I can't doanything with the character,
because he's not mine. I can'tkill him off. She did her best,
she got her at least, shemarried him off. So I've
inherited a family as well tocarry on with, but so I became,
(10:50):
by default, the continuationauthor of Youngman Carter.
Technically, I'm continuing theworks of Margery Allingham's
husband rather than her. But thedifference I found with the two
he wrote two and a half hewrote. The one difference
(11:12):
between them and Margery's booksis he wasn't funny and Margery
was very witty funny, and so Itried to put the funny back. I
hope that's what I've done.
Sarah Harrison (11:29):
You succeeded.
Carolyn Daughters (11:32):
For sure. And it was really fun seeing all of
these characters in in the 1960sand seeing where Albert Campion
has grown and where he is in hislife, in his marriage, his adult
son is now of college age. Hegoes to college, I believe, at
(11:55):
Harvard Business School. Lugg isstill in his life, thankfully,
"Maggers," I guess, as LadyAmanda calls him.
Mike Ripley (12:04):
Do you know why Campion's son had to go to an
American university? BecauseMargery Allingham's books were
always published first inAmerica. That's just the way her
American publisher treated herbetter than her British
publisher? She was much morepopular in America than in this
(12:26):
country, and still is.
Sarah Harrison (12:28):
I did want to ask you about that, because from
our perspective, I would sayshe, she's not as well known as
some of the other authors, likeAgatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers,
right?
Carolyn Daughters (12:42):
But even a Dorothy Sayers or a Ngaio Marsh
for me until so we're our bookclub and podcast tea tonic and
toxin is focused on the historyof mystery. And so we're, we're
Sarah and I are coming to a lotof these books, and authors
fresh and new. And so, you know,we've made our way from the 30s
into the early 40s. AndAllingham was not a familiar
(13:05):
name to me, whereas Ngaio Marshwas Dorothy Sayers was and I'm
thrilled that we have read herand come across her.
Sarah Harrison (13:14):
I love Traitor's Purse. But I was wondering, is
she still very well read inEngland? Is she still really
well known there?
Mike Ripley (13:25):
No, I'm afraid. Oh, no, no. Love to say yes, but
being honest, no,
Sarah Harrison (13:32):
Well, that's really interesting. We had in a
different book club, we read abook that's like, not known at
all here, the Tale of Genji, butit's still read by every high
schooler in Japan, as Iunderstand it. So I was
wondering.
Mike Ripley (13:47):
Possibly the one Albert Campion book that she's
most famous for is Tiger in theSmoke, which is a classic. And
so that's known, but in the mainshe's not there. I mean, people
with taste appreciate her andare great fans. But she's not
(14:15):
nowhere near as well known asAgatha Christie. And Dorothy L.
Sayers is sort of waning now.
She had a comeback phase in the70s and 80s, but Ngaio Marsh has
never really been that wellknown here. I don't think she's
(14:37):
always been the most junior ofthe queens of crime.
Sarah Harrison (14:45):
Interesting.
Carolyn Daughters (14:46):
A New Zealand outcast.
Mike Ripley (14:53):
Have you read many of the men of the Golden Age.
Anthony Berkeley Cox? Very good.
Try him.
Sarah Harrison (15:09):
Okay, I'm gonna write that down.
Carolyn Daughters (15:13):
We will get to Tiger in the Smoke later.
Because it's public, I can'tremember the year in which it's
published. It's 5252 so it weare a year or two away from
getting to the 1950s we are. Weare slowly, gently making our
way through time. That book alsois an outlier, I think, in her
(15:38):
canon of books. I've not read ityet, but from what I understand,
she went in a differentdirection with the bad actor in
that book, and with the role ofAlbert Campion being minimized
in that book.
Mike Ripley (15:54):
That's true, and it's not funny at all. I mean,
it's deadly serious. The tigerin the smoke is a psychopath. I
mean, he's a real bad assseriously, a knife wielding
psychopath. And there's, there'sa lot of Allingham traits,
(16:17):
there's the fog, the fact thatLondon is almost like a
character in the book. And theplot is a bit skew, iffy at
times, but it's the atmospherethe thing. And I described it
once by saying, it's, it wasobviously, it was written in
1951 and for 1951 it'sabsolutely a photograph of
(16:43):
London life. It was not accuratefor 1949 and by 1953 it was out
of date. But for 1951 it waspinpoint, absolute spot on
snapshot of London life, andthat's partly why it's great.
And the fog or the smoke ofLondon is almost like a
(17:05):
character in itself in the book.
Carolyn Daughters (17:07):
Kind of like a Dickens' Bleak House.
Mike Ripley (17:14):
It's though you could one of the other later
ones hide my eyes. Is also a bitBleak House ish as well, but it
is a classic. It is very, verygood, but it marked a watershed
for her, because that's the onepeople remember, although I was
(17:36):
introduced to her, what secondor third and third books, which
were thrillers. I mean, they'revery much treasure hunts.
They're not detective stories,things like mystery mile and
sweet danger, everything exceptpirate ships. I love them. And
(17:56):
that's where you got lug mag asFontaine lug coming into his
own, and I kept him going.
Because the remarkable thingabout Albert Campion, as opposed
to Lord Peter Wimsey or HerculePoirot, is that Campion got
older. He was born in 1900 andby 1930 he was at one age by
(18:16):
traitors purse, he was older andwiser, a little bit wiser by
tiger in the smoke. He wasstarting to slow down, but still
quite clever by the time I gotto him, he's in his 60s, but
he's still sharp. But she saidherself that he was getting too
old to do the running, jumping,shooting stuff. So get other
(18:38):
people to do that whilst heworked out how to defeat the bad
guys. But he was unique. He agedwith the century. Hercule Poirot
was a retired Belgian policeinspector when he started, okay,
1920 so he was 67 then by thetime he solved his last case, he
(19:03):
was 124 but it didn't matterwith Agatha Christie, because he
was timeless. The books aretimeless. You don't read them as
social history, really. You canread Margery Allingham for
social history.
Carolyn Daughters (19:22):
To pick up the mantle, to have this
character in 12 books thatyou've written. I mean, that's
living with a character quite alot. What is it about Albert
Campion that speaks to you, thatyou that you came back to 12
times, and felt like this is anenduring character. This is a
(19:43):
character I want to spend timewith, and that readers want to
spend time with.
Mike Ripley (19:50):
There was a very good friend of mine called Sarah
Cordwell, who was a crimewriter, who sadly died when she
was two. 60, our great loss, butshe described the detective,
hero of very well known crimewriter, P.D. James. The
(20:12):
detective was Adam Dalgleish,who was also a poet, supposedly,
and Sarah once described as hemight be a brilliant detective
and he might be a really goodpoet, but could you face being
stuck in a bus queue in the rainnext to him for half an hour?
(20:33):
No, he'd drive you mad. And Ialways took that as great
advice, because Campion is thebloke you could be stuck in a
bus queue in the rain next toand have a good conversation
with or in the bar of a pub andeither the posh bar or the
public bar playing darts,because he can fit in either
way, either one. He is literallyfriends with lords and possibly
(21:00):
related to royalty, but he canplay darts in the public bar
with burglars and policeconstables. Lord Peter Wimsey
couldn't really do that. He'd begood in a gentleman's club, but
he couldn't cut it with the hoipolloi. But Campion could, and
(21:22):
he's basically a nice guy, andhis heart is in the right place,
and it has some it's not justAlbert Campion, of course. I
mean, you have an entire cast.
His wife, Amanda, is a brilliantcharacter to play with. Lugg is
superb. You couldn't make himup. He's great. All you have to
(21:43):
do is point him at things, andhe comes, gives the goods. So
it's a great ensemble cast, someof the policemen as well. And
I've been very lucky to be ableto play with that cast of
characters. But I love them all,and I should miss them.
Sarah Harrison (22:03):
Do you think you will be able to retire? Are they
going to keep calling back toyou here and there?
Mike Ripley (22:10):
No, I've already done something else. Now I've
gone completely away, written abook where it's crime novel
about writing crime novels.
Sarah Harrison (22:28):
Oh, interesting.
Mike Ripley (22:32):
Comes out in September. We'll see how that
that comes. And how some bookshave very annoying things at the
back called playlists, wherethese young people think you're
remotely interested in the musicthey've been listening to whilst
(22:53):
they've been writing the book.
Sarah Harrison (22:57):
Do you have one in this one?
Mike Ripley (23:00):
No, no. In my next book coming out in September,
instead of a playlist, I've donean appendix giving all the
references to crime novels thatthe reader will have missed.
Sarah Harrison (23:15):
Now that's what I want. That's what I want. I
always feel like I'm missing abunch of easter eggs like that.
Carolyn Daughters (23:23):
What is the name of this book that's coming
out?
Mike Ripley (23:25):
Buried Above Ground. It comes out in
September.
Carolyn Daughters (23:31):
I love this.
So when you were writing theseAlbert Campion books, what
Golden Age tropes did you makesure that you held on too tight,
you honored. And which ones didyou play with a little bit, if
any?
Mike Ripley (23:49):
Well, I had a bit of scope, because I was
technically putting a golden agedetective into the swinging 60s
by the time I got to them. Sothat was one that how would a
golden age detective react to adrug dealer? And then you
(24:12):
actually do some research, andyou find that taking cocaine in
the 1930s was the second biggestsport after baseball. It was
nothing was particularly new. Sohe wouldn't be too shockable.
That's first thing I learned.
Was he probably wouldn't be tooshocked. It would take an awful
lot to shock him, plus the facthe lived through the war and he
(24:34):
was an intelligent, sensible guyso but I mean, there are other
things that would have to stayclear of technology, which was,
which is why the 60s was goodtime to do it, and, and as
you've seen from today, I'mpretty useless with technology.
(24:58):
So that fitted my portfolioperfectly. The other thing as a
writer, of course, is that I wasasked this by an American at a
crime writing convention, whosaid, what did I have to do to
(25:18):
write Campion, as opposed to myoriginal detective hero? It was
called Angel. And I said, Well,I had to clean up my act quite a
lot, so you had to cut out theswearing and a lot of the
references and so on. But, butthat was also great fun, because
you could mix things. Andthere's in, I think it's in Mr.
(25:41):
Campion's Fox, which is set in1970, 69-70, and Campion is at a
brewery, of course, in EastAnglia, and one of the delivery
guys is driving out with a loadof beer on and in his van he has
(26:03):
an eight track stereo. Now this,for you young people, is what we
had, a huge, cumbersome music inyour car like that, and it's
playing the Rolling Stones,right? And, of course, campaign
says, well, they'll never last.
(26:24):
What are they going to do whenthey're 75 and they're still
going to be playing, and so isAlbert Campion still going to be
detecting, you know? So you canget in lots of gags like that,
which is great, great fun, butbasically you had to, I think
(26:47):
keeping him, not shocking him,but not making him unshockable.
There were certain things he wasbecause, as Margery Allingham's
books, the last ones she wrotein the early 60s, she was
obviously, clearly very worriedabout motorcycle gangs, which
were the thing at the time. Andgoing back further, there were
(27:12):
things like traitors Perth,which was remarkably perceptive,
because she was realized thatfaking the forging currency was
a good way of undermining thewar effort. And she could not
possibly have known, because weknow she started writing that
book in 1939 she could notpossibly have known that the
(27:37):
Germans there was a specialdivision of the SS that was
actually running a thing calledOperation Bernhardt, which was
exactly what Margery predicted,printing fake five pound notes.
I've seen some. They're now in amuseum local. That's wild. But
she couldn't have known that,because that was not allowed
release to the public untilafter the war ended. So she was
(28:01):
just making a very astute guessbeing a good crime writer.
Carolyn Daughters (28:05):
A good creative writer? Absolutely.
Sarah Harrison (28:08):
Do you feel like and I hope this is true, but has
continuing the Campion charactercontinued to generate interest
in Allingham and sort ofreviving her works?
Mike Ripley (28:23):
Oh, I hope so. I got a nasty feeling though, that
probably more people remember myAlbert Campion than hers now
living people that which I don'twould not want, because it's,
I've just borrowed thecharacter. I've been very
(28:43):
privileged. But it's strange.
There was a television series inthe 90s, and why it ended, I'm
not sure, because I thought itwas quite good, and the
constantly talk of whether thatcan be remade or redone. And
ironically, the guy who playedCampion, Peter Davison, is now
(29:08):
exactly the right age to play myCampion.
Carolyn Daughters (29:14):
I would love a comeback.
Mike Ripley (29:16):
So would I. And of course, he was excellent. When I
mentioned this to him, he said,what all actors say, call my
agent, and so nothing else everhappened. But I don't know
whether that would ever happen.
Ever happened, but certainly thePoirot have been remarkably
(29:37):
successful on TV. Ngaio Marsh isless so, and Dorothy L Sayers
hasn't been done for quite awhile right now. So I don't
know, people always reinventingthings. You got the things like
Knives Out there's a modern takeon things. The Golden Age. Some
(29:59):
of the Inspector Alleyn bookswill stand as classics. I mean
Tiger in the Smoke is an AlbertCampion book that's above and
beyond. A classic is alwaysgoing to be in the top 100, top
1000 crime novels ever written,sure.
Carolyn Daughters (30:21):
You mentioned Anthony Berkeley Cox. Are there
other Golden Age writers who wejust don't read as much now, but
we should go back and try tofind we should be reading their
works. Who are these writers?
Mike Ripley (30:34):
Well, Anthony Berkeley Cox, who is also known
as Francis Isles.
Carolyn Daughters (30:40):
We've read him.
Sarah Harrison (30:44):
Yes, we did.
Mike Ripley (30:45):
And Dr. Bickleigh in Malice Aforethought tells you
whodunit. Chapter one, line one.
Carolyn Daughters (30:53):
That was awesome. It's a how more of a
howdunit, I guess.
Mike Ripley (30:59):
I used to use that as an example. And I used to
teach a class called CreativeCrime Writing, and that was the
classic example. Way it tellsyou who done it the first line
of chapter one, and then, if youskip to the back, you will see
(31:23):
that the guy gets is hung formurder, but it wasn't the murder
you think, yes, that wasconvicted for a murder he
couldn't have committed becausehe was too busy murdering
somebody else. Brilliant, yes,but he did a follow up called
before the fact, which wasfilmed by Hitchcock with Cary
(31:49):
Grant and somebody. It's not afamous Hitchcock, but it's quite
well known, but they had tochange the ending, but it's
basically a woman. It's all donefrom a woman's point of view.
And a woman get falls in lovewith this pretty caddish sort
(32:12):
who's after her money, and sheknows this, and she knows he's
gonna probably kill her, and shelets him what? It's really
weird. And of course, in theHitchcock movie, even Hitchcock
wouldn't go that far. He changedit. There's a happy ending.
Can't remember what the what themovie's called, but anyway, of
(32:37):
course Margery Allingham and theAlbert Campion novels are very
good. And certainly AnthonyBerkeley Cox is very good. And
there's chap whom I like,although they're more thrillers
than detective stories, calledPhilip McDonald, who actually
went to live in America andwrote for Hollywood for quite a
(32:59):
while in the 30s and but hisbooks are fantastic amount of
pace, and the early ones werecrime novels. So either those
and the other guy also worthlooking up, C.S. Forester, the
man who wrote the Hornblowerbooks right his first three
(33:20):
novels were detective storieswhere, again, like Anthony
Berkeley Cox, he tells you whodid it straight away. They're
the earliest examples I found,if you like British noir
writing, which everybody thinksis American, and Dashiell
Hammett in the 20s and thirtiesand Jim Johnson, sure. But the
(33:44):
early C.S. Forester, is good,very good. And there are lots of
others. I'm just rereadingEdmund Crispin at the moment,
after the Second World War.
Sarah Harrison (33:56):
We're gonna get to him, I believe, later this
year. Which one are you reading?
Mike Ripley (34:04):
I'm reading the Case of Gilded Fly. His first
one, which I've never actuallyread, but his favorite one is
The Moving Toyshop.
Sarah Harrison (34:14):
We have that on the list.
Mike Ripley (34:15):
That's good. That's very good. If you like Margery
Allingham's Albert Campionbooks, you'll enjoy Edmund
Crispin.
Carolyn Daughters (34:19):
Just a random question that has nothing to do
with anything, but you arewearing a Florence t-shirt, and
I believe the clock in yourhouse is Venice. So tell us
about Italy. What's going on inItaly?
Mike Ripley (34:42):
I don't know if you can see with the camera. They
know the map on the wall. Ah,that's Venice.
Carolyn Daughters (34:55):
Venice. So you go to Italy. Special, love
of Italy.
Mike Ripley (35:00):
Every year we go anyhow.
Carolyn Daughters (35:05):
And have you said any books in Italy, or
thought about setting books?
Mike Ripley (35:10):
No, no, I haven't.
Actually, that's a thought. No,I'll leave that I have some very
good friends who are Italiancrime writers, and I've made for
over the years, and no funny, Igo and we go to Italy. I take
(35:32):
one book and I never finish itbecause there's too much else to
do. So, but we're going thisSeptember. We're going to place
we've never been before, sothat'll be quite fun. The
Italian Riviera in Terre cinqueor Cinque Terre, and up in the
(35:55):
mountains above Florence.
Amazing.
Carolyn Daughters (36:04):
That's amazing, Sarah. I know you had
another question aboutAllingham, and I have a couple
more questions generally.
Sarah Harrison (36:12):
I just wanted to get, for our listeners and
myself, the general timeline,because this feels like an
unusual situation, right? She'swriting her Albert Campion
novels. And then I hadn'trealized that Youngman Carter,
her husband, took over and wrotea couple when she died. Was he
(36:36):
already a writer? And then, andthen you took over. So her
characters have transferredmultiple
Mike Ripley (36:42):
There's a bit of a gap. Margery Allingham died in
1966, and Youngman Carter diedin 1969 but he had been
primarily a journalist and shortstory writer, and I've even
(37:03):
edited a collection of his shortstories. He was quite good short
story writer, tending towardsthe Gothic, slightly
supernatural things, but again,no sense of humor, and it was
all said that he cooperated withMargery, certainly on the very
(37:25):
early books, he did have aninput, and I think Margery
Allingham would have liked himto have more of an input, but he
had other interests, shall wesay. And then he was away in the
war for a long time, about sixyears of his way. And then he
(37:47):
came back from serving in thearmy, and he became a magazine
editor in London. So he was intomagazines and journalism. So
yes, he was a writer, but hejust didn't do novels. He did a
lot of travel writing as well,and was great wine writer too.
(38:08):
And so eventually, but as he allsaid, he done quite a lot of the
work with the plotting. Andthere are bits in the any, any
of the early Albert Campionbooks, the early Allingham books
where he suddenly starts talkingabout architecture or art,
that's usually young man Carter.
Those were his things. I thinkMargery just thought she'd
(38:31):
better put a bit in to keep himhappy. But so you use a logical
choice to when she because shedied halfway through a book
called cargo of eagles, and thegame was for the fans. Can you
(38:53):
spot the place where he tookover from her chapter seven, I'm
pretty sure of it. But so he hadto finish that one, because that
was being written and when shedied, and then the publishers
(39:14):
obviously said, You finishedone. Can you do it? Do another?
And Margery had planned oneabout a Russian defector in 1967
very hot topic called the Kopeckenigma. And Kopeck being a very
(39:38):
small Russian coin. Well, thepublishers thought nobody would
know what a coffin was, so theycalled it a farthing. So that
became Mr. Campion's Farthing.
And that was told the first soloeffort he did, then he did
another one called Mr. Campion'sFalcon. Lina might have had
(39:58):
slightly different title. InAmerica, because that always
happened, and then he started athird one, and then died, and I
was the same age as he was whenI was started writing my third
Albert Campion book, and I wasdetermined to finish it before
(40:19):
my next birthday, because of thejinx that you do the third one
and you die halfway through. SoI finished that one quite
quickly, so he finished, died in1969 and the bit of the
(40:41):
manuscript he had stayed dormantwithin the Margery Allingham
Society, if you like, until2010, so that's 30-40, years,
and then I resurrected it.
Sarah Harrison (40:55):
Do people play the same game and try and figure
out where you took over in thebook?
Mike Ripley (41:01):
They do, but it's fairly obvious. Is where the
jokes start.
Carolyn Daughters (41:09):
Because your writing style is so different
than his.
Mike Ripley (41:16):
It's not difficult.
I mean, what was slightlyworrying, except for the first
reviews from somebody in Americasaid how brilliant Mike Ripley
had done the opening chaptersare superbly. Said, No, those
weren't, not me.
Carolyn Daughters (41:38):
Well, the humor is such a key part of
Allingham's Albert Campion booksthat I'm glad you recaptured
that.
Mike Ripley (41:51):
I'm glad I was, I hope, in campaigns, Christmas in
particular. So because that isvery much a farce, yes, the
almost quite literally Frenchfast, and people coming in and
going out, and things gettingsillier. There are also lots of
(42:11):
references to James Bond in it,as there are in the first that's
because they were in the firstcamp in what I did in Mr.
Campion's farewell, he sends hisson and his new wife on a
delayed honeymoon down to acasino on the French Riviera,
(42:34):
amazing. And the casino managergreets them and so something
like, oh, it's very hot andsticky, smoke filled atmosphere,
especially at three o'clock inthe morning, which is the
opening paragraph of JamesBond's Casino Royale.
Carolyn Daughters (42:53):
In Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, you trace the
evolution of the British spythriller. Why do you think it's
the golden age of the thriller?
Why do you think these Britishauthors were so present? So why
did they so powerfully shape thespy genre and that mid-20th
(43:14):
century era?
Mike Ripley (43:20):
Well, the period the book covers is 1953 to 1975
but the late 50s and 60s. Imean, I always said Britain was
losing an empire and becoming athird- or fourth-rate power. So
(43:44):
the only way it could save theworld was through its secret
agents who just happened to befictional. They weren't real
because the real ones wereterrible. They were all
traitors, like Kim Philby. Butit was just a classic example of
the British punching way abovetheir weight with no
(44:04):
justification whatsoever, andjust as we would say, blagging
our way through just putting abrave face on it, convincing
everybody, of course, we'reBritish, so we know what we're
doing. You didn't, and it seemedto work.
Sarah Harrison (44:23):
Well, Mike, we are we are at time for this
episode. But can you stay foranother short episode to dive
into Albert Campion and Mr.
Campion's Christmas a littlebit?
Mike Ripley (44:32):
Sure. I've got wine. I'm fine.
Sarah Harrison (44:36):
All right.
Listeners, you heard it. We'llbring Mike back for the next
episode. Go get go, get your ownglass if you want to join them.
Carolyn Daughters (44:48):
Yes.
Listeners, get your glass.
Sarah Harrison (44:51):
We hope you enjoyed this episode about
Margery Allingham and AlbertCampion. If you did, it would
mean the world to us if youwould subscribe, and then you'll
never miss an episode. Mode, besure to leave us a rating or
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Carolyn Daughters (45:13):
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Sarah Harrison (45:37):
We want to thank you for joining us on our
journey through the history ofmystery. We absolutely adore you
until next time, StayMysterious.
Welcome to Tea, Tonic and Toxin, a book club and
podcast for anyone who wants toexplore the best mysteries and
thrillers ever written. I'm yourhost Sarah Harrison.
Carolyn Daughters (00:35):
And I'm your host Carolyn Daughters. Pour
yourself a cup of tea, a gin andtonic, but not a toxin, and join
us on a journey through 19th and20th century mysteries and
thrillers, every one of them agame changer.
Sarah Harrison (00:57):
Today's sponsor is Carolyn Daughters. Carolyn
runs game changing corporatebrand therapy workshops, teaches
Online Marketing Boot Campcourses, and leads persuasive
(01:20):
writing workshops. Carolynempowers startups, small
businesses, enterpriseorganizations and government
agencies to win hearts, minds,deals and dollars. You can learn
more at carolyndaughters.com.
Carolyn, we have such a coolguest today.
Carolyn Daughters (01:41):
We do. I'm very excited about it. We got we
got up early for this one.
Sarah Harrison (01:45):
We did. Our guest is at a little bit of a
distance from us. We have MikeRipley all the way from ...
where are you calling from?
Mike Ripley (01:54):
Mike East Anglia, outside of London in England.
Sarah Harrison (01:59):
In England, awesome, our international,
fabulous guest today, MikeRipley. We're really excited to
talk to him about his book.
Carolyn Daughters (02:11):
About all, all 12 of the books, actually,
and also about, generallyspeaking, Margery Allingham.
We're discussing MargeryAllingham, the Albert Campion
canon, and his involvement inthat.
(02:39):
Mike Ripley is the author of 28novels, including the
award-winning Angel series ofcomedy thrillers, and one of the
few authors to win the CrimeWriters Last Laugh award twice.
Mike Ripley (02:50):
Three times, three times.
Sarah Harrison (02:53):
How did we get this incorrect bio?
Mike Ripley (02:55):
I won again last week.
Sarah Harrison (02:59):
Oh, congratulations!
Carolyn Daughters (03:00):
For Mr.
Champion's Christmas. From 1989to 2008 he was a crime fiction
critic for The Daily Telegraphand then The Birmingham Post,
reviewing more than 950 crimenovels. That's a lot of crime
novels. He co-edited threevolumes of fresh blood stories
(03:20):
by new British writers includingIan Rankin, Lee Child, Ken
Bruin, Charlie Higson, andChristopher Brookmeyer. He was
also a script writer on the BBCseries Lovejoy. Mike Ripley
completed the third AlbertCampion novel, left unfinished
on the death of Pip YoungmanCarter, who was the husband of
(03:40):
Margery Allingham in 1969. Mr.
Campion's Farewell was publishedin the UK and the US in 2014
,and Mike has continued theCampion series annually with the
12th and final book in theseries, Mr. Campion's Christmas
appearing in 2024. Described byThe Times as England's funniest
(04:02):
crime writer, Mike is arespected critic of crime
fiction, writing for TheGuardian, Daily Telegraph, and
The Times. He writes the monthlyGetting Away with Murder column
on Shots magazine. He was aseries editor of the Astera
crime and top notch thrillerimprints, rescuing and reviving
more than 100 crime novels andthrillers that didn't deserve to
(04:25):
be forgotten. He also becameknown as the unofficial
historian of the Britishthriller after the publication
of Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, whichwon the 2018 HRF Keating award
for nonfiction. Welcome, Mike.
That's quite a bio you havethere. That's awesome.
Mike Ripley (04:42):
Well, I think that's all we have time for,
isn't it?
Carolyn Daughters (04:44):
And that wraps up this episode, which was
a brilliant episode. We shared alot of information. It was a
good conversation.
Sarah Harrison (04:55):
Mike, I was so excited when I found you on the
internet. We read Traitor'sPurse as part of our podcast,
and we were looking around forfolks to interview about Margery
Allingham, and you were one ofthe most unique people in that
you had continued her work,which I thought was amazing. So
(05:19):
we are really excited to talk toyou, especially about that
angle, but I want to go back towhere you got started with
Allingham. How did you find herfirst book? What was it? What
was the read like?
Mike Ripley (05:33):
Well, my first encounter with her was in the
year she died, actually, 1966. Iwas living in Cambridge. I was
not at the university, but I wasjust living in the town. But I
(05:54):
knew a professor at theuniversity who read detective
stories all the time, and herecommended Margery Allingham to
me, and the first couple AlbertCampion books, I think, were
Sweet Danger and Mystery Mile.
They were what were known as herthrillers, rather than whodunits
and I was hooked. I justthought, great. I'd never heard
(06:15):
of this woman, and because thenI tried to find out about her,
and found she'd died that year.
So I read what I what I could,but I always remembered that in
mystery mile, there's a map atthe front of the book which
shows the island of mysterymile, and it's connected to the
(06:37):
mainland by a thing called thestrood, right, which is like a
causeway. And few years later,when I'd been I'd been to
university, and so I was lookingfor a job, and I saw a job
advertised at the University ofEssex, which I got. And so I was
(06:58):
looking around for places tolive. So I got a map out, and I
saw this island off the Essexcoast, suspiciously like the one
in mystery mile, and it wasconvict connected to the
mainland by a causeway calledthe strood What? So I thought,
(07:19):
This is fate. I can rememberthis, so I must. I never
actually got to live on theisland, which is called Mersey
island, but I've been there alot, but I live quite close, and
so did Margery Allingham. And sothat was my connection with
Allingham and I've always lived,coincidentally, about 10 miles
(07:41):
from where they did. So that wasmy answer. I knew who she was
when I moved down to Allinghamcountry, where I've lived now
for a long time, more than 40years. And so I was always
interested, and I became amember of the Margery Allingham
society, and it was at a meetingof that society in 2010 I think,
(08:09):
and I was giving a talk aboutsomething or other. And somebody
mentioned in passing the thirdyoung man, Carter novel. And I
said there were three now, whoknew? Because I didn't. I read
the two that he'd written, andthey said, Yes, he'd started a
(08:31):
third novel and then died, andit had been left to the Margery
Allingham Society in the will ofMargery Allingham's sister. So I
said, Can I have a look at it?
And has anybody ever tried tofinish it? And they said, Well,
this Albert Campion book was abit of a mess, and it was like
three, four chapters and noplots, no plan, nothing their
(08:52):
characters or anything. But Iwas intrigued, because the
opening chapter was set in fromthe description I knew the
place, the town in Suffolkcalled Lavenham, which I knew
very well and recognizedimmediately. And so I thought,
Well, as I know that, I can seewhere he was going with one or
(09:16):
two things, and as I'll have ago. And that became Mr.
Campion's Farewell. The farewellbit being that he was going to
retire from being a detectivebecause, as because he was
getting well, he would be 68 or69 by then. But farewell means
nothing in publishing. Andanother 11 books follow. But
(09:39):
anyway, I had great fun doingit, and wrote it as if it was
set in the late 1960s whenAlbert Campion would have been
60-69, to and but it wasinitially I was doing as a one
off, but before it waspublished, the. Publisher, the
man who owned the publishingcompany, said to me, who was a
(10:02):
great Allingham fan, said,What's the next one? I said,
Well, I've just retired him. AndI said, but you haven't killed
him, so that's okay. Let's doanother. So Mr. Campion's Fox
followed that, and then the restfollowed after that. But I said
Mr. Campion's Christmas will bethe last one, because I think 12
(10:26):
is enough, and to do more thanMargery Allingham did would be
incredibly rude. And I can't doanything with the character,
because he's not mine. I can'tkill him off. She did her best,
she got her at least, shemarried him off. So I've
inherited a family as well tocarry on with, but so I became,
(10:50):
by default, the continuationauthor of Youngman Carter.
Technically, I'm continuing theworks of Margery Allingham's
husband rather than her. But thedifference I found with the two
he wrote two and a half hewrote. The one difference
(11:12):
between them and Margery's booksis he wasn't funny and Margery
was very witty funny, and so Itried to put the funny back. I
hope that's what I've done.
Sarah Harrison (11:29):
You succeeded.
Carolyn Daughters (11:32):
For sure. And it was really fun seeing all of
these characters in in the 1960sand seeing where Albert Campion
has grown and where he is in hislife, in his marriage, his adult
son is now of college age. Hegoes to college, I believe, at
(11:55):
Harvard Business School. Lugg isstill in his life, thankfully,
"Maggers," I guess, as LadyAmanda calls him.
Mike Ripley (12:04):
Do you know why Campion's son had to go to an
American university? BecauseMargery Allingham's books were
always published first inAmerica. That's just the way her
American publisher treated herbetter than her British
publisher? She was much morepopular in America than in this
(12:26):
country, and still is.
Sarah Harrison (12:28):
I did want to ask you about that, because from
our perspective, I would sayshe, she's not as well known as
some of the other authors, likeAgatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers,
right?
Carolyn Daughters (12:42):
But even a Dorothy Sayers or a Ngaio Marsh
for me until so we're our bookclub and podcast tea tonic and
toxin is focused on the historyof mystery. And so we're, we're
Sarah and I are coming to a lotof these books, and authors
fresh and new. And so, you know,we've made our way from the 30s
into the early 40s. AndAllingham was not a familiar
(13:05):
name to me, whereas Ngaio Marshwas Dorothy Sayers was and I'm
thrilled that we have read herand come across her.
Sarah Harrison (13:14):
I love Traitor's Purse. But I was wondering, is
she still very well read inEngland? Is she still really
well known there?
Mike Ripley (13:25):
No, I'm afraid. Oh, no, no. Love to say yes, but
being honest, no,
Sarah Harrison (13:32):
Well, that's really interesting. We had in a
different book club, we read abook that's like, not known at
all here, the Tale of Genji, butit's still read by every high
schooler in Japan, as Iunderstand it. So I was
wondering.
Mike Ripley (13:47):
Possibly the one Albert Campion book that she's
most famous for is Tiger in theSmoke, which is a classic. And
so that's known, but in the mainshe's not there. I mean, people
with taste appreciate her andare great fans. But she's not
(14:15):
nowhere near as well known asAgatha Christie. And Dorothy L.
Sayers is sort of waning now.
She had a comeback phase in the70s and 80s, but Ngaio Marsh has
never really been that wellknown here. I don't think she's
(14:37):
always been the most junior ofthe queens of crime.
Sarah Harrison (14:45):
Interesting.
Carolyn Daughters (14:46):
A New Zealand outcast.
Mike Ripley (14:53):
Have you read many of the men of the Golden Age.
Anthony Berkeley Cox? Very good.
Try him.
Sarah Harrison (15:09):
Okay, I'm gonna write that down.
Carolyn Daughters (15:13):
We will get to Tiger in the Smoke later.
Because it's public, I can'tremember the year in which it's
published. It's 5252 so it weare a year or two away from
getting to the 1950s we are. Weare slowly, gently making our
way through time. That book alsois an outlier, I think, in her
(15:38):
canon of books. I've not read ityet, but from what I understand,
she went in a differentdirection with the bad actor in
that book, and with the role ofAlbert Campion being minimized
in that book.
Mike Ripley (15:54):
That's true, and it's not funny at all. I mean,
it's deadly serious. The tigerin the smoke is a psychopath. I
mean, he's a real bad assseriously, a knife wielding
psychopath. And there's, there'sa lot of Allingham traits,
(16:17):
there's the fog, the fact thatLondon is almost like a
character in the book. And theplot is a bit skew, iffy at
times, but it's the atmospherethe thing. And I described it
once by saying, it's, it wasobviously, it was written in
1951 and for 1951 it'sabsolutely a photograph of
(16:43):
London life. It was not accuratefor 1949 and by 1953 it was out
of date. But for 1951 it waspinpoint, absolute spot on
snapshot of London life, andthat's partly why it's great.
And the fog or the smoke ofLondon is almost like a
(17:05):
character in itself in the book.
Carolyn Daughters (17:07):
Kind of like a Dickens' Bleak House.
Mike Ripley (17:14):
It's though you could one of the other later
ones hide my eyes. Is also a bitBleak House ish as well, but it
is a classic. It is very, verygood, but it marked a watershed
for her, because that's the onepeople remember, although I was
(17:36):
introduced to her, what secondor third and third books, which
were thrillers. I mean, they'revery much treasure hunts.
They're not detective stories,things like mystery mile and
sweet danger, everything exceptpirate ships. I love them. And
(17:56):
that's where you got lug mag asFontaine lug coming into his
own, and I kept him going.
Because the remarkable thingabout Albert Campion, as opposed
to Lord Peter Wimsey or HerculePoirot, is that Campion got
older. He was born in 1900 andby 1930 he was at one age by
(18:16):
traitors purse, he was older andwiser, a little bit wiser by
tiger in the smoke. He wasstarting to slow down, but still
quite clever by the time I gotto him, he's in his 60s, but
he's still sharp. But she saidherself that he was getting too
old to do the running, jumping,shooting stuff. So get other
(18:38):
people to do that whilst heworked out how to defeat the bad
guys. But he was unique. He agedwith the century. Hercule Poirot
was a retired Belgian policeinspector when he started, okay,
1920 so he was 67 then by thetime he solved his last case, he
(19:03):
was 124 but it didn't matterwith Agatha Christie, because he
was timeless. The books aretimeless. You don't read them as
social history, really. You canread Margery Allingham for
social history.
Carolyn Daughters (19:22):
To pick up the mantle, to have this
character in 12 books thatyou've written. I mean, that's
living with a character quite alot. What is it about Albert
Campion that speaks to you, thatyou that you came back to 12
times, and felt like this is anenduring character. This is a
(19:43):
character I want to spend timewith, and that readers want to
spend time with.
Mike Ripley (19:50):
There was a very good friend of mine called Sarah
Cordwell, who was a crimewriter, who sadly died when she
was two. 60, our great loss, butshe described the detective,
hero of very well known crimewriter, P.D. James. The
(20:12):
detective was Adam Dalgleish,who was also a poet, supposedly,
and Sarah once described as hemight be a brilliant detective
and he might be a really goodpoet, but could you face being
stuck in a bus queue in the rainnext to him for half an hour?
(20:33):
No, he'd drive you mad. And Ialways took that as great
advice, because Campion is thebloke you could be stuck in a
bus queue in the rain next toand have a good conversation
with or in the bar of a pub andeither the posh bar or the
public bar playing darts,because he can fit in either
way, either one. He is literallyfriends with lords and possibly
(21:00):
related to royalty, but he canplay darts in the public bar
with burglars and policeconstables. Lord Peter Wimsey
couldn't really do that. He'd begood in a gentleman's club, but
he couldn't cut it with the hoipolloi. But Campion could, and
(21:22):
he's basically a nice guy, andhis heart is in the right place,
and it has some it's not justAlbert Campion, of course. I
mean, you have an entire cast.
His wife, Amanda, is a brilliantcharacter to play with. Lugg is
superb. You couldn't make himup. He's great. All you have to
(21:43):
do is point him at things, andhe comes, gives the goods. So
it's a great ensemble cast, someof the policemen as well. And
I've been very lucky to be ableto play with that cast of
characters. But I love them all,and I should miss them.
Sarah Harrison (22:03):
Do you think you will be able to retire? Are they
going to keep calling back toyou here and there?
Mike Ripley (22:10):
No, I've already done something else. Now I've
gone completely away, written abook where it's crime novel
about writing crime novels.
Sarah Harrison (22:28):
Oh, interesting.
Mike Ripley (22:32):
Comes out in September. We'll see how that
that comes. And how some bookshave very annoying things at the
back called playlists, wherethese young people think you're
remotely interested in the musicthey've been listening to whilst
(22:53):
they've been writing the book.
Sarah Harrison (22:57):
Do you have one in this one?
Mike Ripley (23:00):
No, no. In my next book coming out in September,
instead of a playlist, I've donean appendix giving all the
references to crime novels thatthe reader will have missed.
Sarah Harrison (23:15):
Now that's what I want. That's what I want. I
always feel like I'm missing abunch of easter eggs like that.
Carolyn Daughters (23:23):
What is the name of this book that's coming
out?
Mike Ripley (23:25):
Buried Above Ground. It comes out in
September.
Carolyn Daughters (23:31):
I love this.
So when you were writing theseAlbert Campion books, what
Golden Age tropes did you makesure that you held on too tight,
you honored. And which ones didyou play with a little bit, if
any?
Mike Ripley (23:49):
Well, I had a bit of scope, because I was
technically putting a golden agedetective into the swinging 60s
by the time I got to them. Sothat was one that how would a
golden age detective react to adrug dealer? And then you
(24:12):
actually do some research, andyou find that taking cocaine in
the 1930s was the second biggestsport after baseball. It was
nothing was particularly new. Sohe wouldn't be too shockable.
That's first thing I learned.
Was he probably wouldn't be tooshocked. It would take an awful
lot to shock him, plus the facthe lived through the war and he
(24:34):
was an intelligent, sensible guyso but I mean, there are other
things that would have to stayclear of technology, which was,
which is why the 60s was goodtime to do it, and, and as
you've seen from today, I'mpretty useless with technology.
(24:58):
So that fitted my portfolioperfectly. The other thing as a
writer, of course, is that I wasasked this by an American at a
crime writing convention, whosaid, what did I have to do to
(25:18):
write Campion, as opposed to myoriginal detective hero? It was
called Angel. And I said, Well,I had to clean up my act quite a
lot, so you had to cut out theswearing and a lot of the
references and so on. But, butthat was also great fun, because
you could mix things. Andthere's in, I think it's in Mr.
(25:41):
Campion's Fox, which is set in1970, 69-70, and Campion is at a
brewery, of course, in EastAnglia, and one of the delivery
guys is driving out with a loadof beer on and in his van he has
(26:03):
an eight track stereo. Now this,for you young people, is what we
had, a huge, cumbersome music inyour car like that, and it's
playing the Rolling Stones,right? And, of course, campaign
says, well, they'll never last.
(26:24):
What are they going to do whenthey're 75 and they're still
going to be playing, and so isAlbert Campion still going to be
detecting, you know? So you canget in lots of gags like that,
which is great, great fun, butbasically you had to, I think
(26:47):
keeping him, not shocking him,but not making him unshockable.
There were certain things he wasbecause, as Margery Allingham's
books, the last ones she wrotein the early 60s, she was
obviously, clearly very worriedabout motorcycle gangs, which
were the thing at the time. Andgoing back further, there were
(27:12):
things like traitors Perth,which was remarkably perceptive,
because she was realized thatfaking the forging currency was
a good way of undermining thewar effort. And she could not
possibly have known, because weknow she started writing that
book in 1939 she could notpossibly have known that the
(27:37):
Germans there was a specialdivision of the SS that was
actually running a thing calledOperation Bernhardt, which was
exactly what Margery predicted,printing fake five pound notes.
I've seen some. They're now in amuseum local. That's wild. But
she couldn't have known that,because that was not allowed
release to the public untilafter the war ended. So she was
(28:01):
just making a very astute guessbeing a good crime writer.
Carolyn Daughters (28:05):
A good creative writer? Absolutely.
Sarah Harrison (28:08):
Do you feel like and I hope this is true, but has
continuing the Campion charactercontinued to generate interest
in Allingham and sort ofreviving her works?
Mike Ripley (28:23):
Oh, I hope so. I got a nasty feeling though, that
probably more people remember myAlbert Campion than hers now
living people that which I don'twould not want, because it's,
I've just borrowed thecharacter. I've been very
(28:43):
privileged. But it's strange.
There was a television series inthe 90s, and why it ended, I'm
not sure, because I thought itwas quite good, and the
constantly talk of whether thatcan be remade or redone. And
ironically, the guy who playedCampion, Peter Davison, is now
(29:08):
exactly the right age to play myCampion.
Carolyn Daughters (29:14):
I would love a comeback.
Mike Ripley (29:16):
So would I. And of course, he was excellent. When I
mentioned this to him, he said,what all actors say, call my
agent, and so nothing else everhappened. But I don't know
whether that would ever happen.
Ever happened, but certainly thePoirot have been remarkably
(29:37):
successful on TV. Ngaio Marsh isless so, and Dorothy L Sayers
hasn't been done for quite awhile right now. So I don't
know, people always reinventingthings. You got the things like
Knives Out there's a modern takeon things. The Golden Age. Some
(29:59):
of the Inspector Alleyn bookswill stand as classics. I mean
Tiger in the Smoke is an AlbertCampion book that's above and
beyond. A classic is alwaysgoing to be in the top 100, top
1000 crime novels ever written,sure.
Carolyn Daughters (30:21):
You mentioned Anthony Berkeley Cox. Are there
other Golden Age writers who wejust don't read as much now, but
we should go back and try tofind we should be reading their
works. Who are these writers?
Mike Ripley (30:34):
Well, Anthony Berkeley Cox, who is also known
as Francis Isles.
Carolyn Daughters (30:40):
We've read him.
Sarah Harrison (30:44):
Yes, we did.
Mike Ripley (30:45):
And Dr. Bickleigh in Malice Aforethought tells you
whodunit. Chapter one, line one.
Carolyn Daughters (30:53):
That was awesome. It's a how more of a
howdunit, I guess.
Mike Ripley (30:59):
I used to use that as an example. And I used to
teach a class called CreativeCrime Writing, and that was the
classic example. Way it tellsyou who done it the first line
of chapter one, and then, if youskip to the back, you will see
(31:23):
that the guy gets is hung formurder, but it wasn't the murder
you think, yes, that wasconvicted for a murder he
couldn't have committed becausehe was too busy murdering
somebody else. Brilliant, yes,but he did a follow up called
before the fact, which wasfilmed by Hitchcock with Cary
(31:49):
Grant and somebody. It's not afamous Hitchcock, but it's quite
well known, but they had tochange the ending, but it's
basically a woman. It's all donefrom a woman's point of view.
And a woman get falls in lovewith this pretty caddish sort
(32:12):
who's after her money, and sheknows this, and she knows he's
gonna probably kill her, and shelets him what? It's really
weird. And of course, in theHitchcock movie, even Hitchcock
wouldn't go that far. He changedit. There's a happy ending.
Can't remember what the what themovie's called, but anyway, of
(32:37):
course Margery Allingham and theAlbert Campion novels are very
good. And certainly AnthonyBerkeley Cox is very good. And
there's chap whom I like,although they're more thrillers
than detective stories, calledPhilip McDonald, who actually
went to live in America andwrote for Hollywood for quite a
(32:59):
while in the 30s and but hisbooks are fantastic amount of
pace, and the early ones werecrime novels. So either those
and the other guy also worthlooking up, C.S. Forester, the
man who wrote the Hornblowerbooks right his first three
(33:20):
novels were detective storieswhere, again, like Anthony
Berkeley Cox, he tells you whodid it straight away. They're
the earliest examples I found,if you like British noir
writing, which everybody thinksis American, and Dashiell
Hammett in the 20s and thirtiesand Jim Johnson, sure. But the
(33:44):
early C.S. Forester, is good,very good. And there are lots of
others. I'm just rereadingEdmund Crispin at the moment,
after the Second World War.
Sarah Harrison (33:56):
We're gonna get to him, I believe, later this
year. Which one are you reading?
Mike Ripley (34:04):
I'm reading the Case of Gilded Fly. His first
one, which I've never actuallyread, but his favorite one is
The Moving Toyshop.
Sarah Harrison (34:14):
We have that on the list.
Mike Ripley (34:15):
That's good. That's very good. If you like Margery
Allingham's Albert Campionbooks, you'll enjoy Edmund
Crispin.
Carolyn Daughters (34:19):
Just a random question that has nothing to do
with anything, but you arewearing a Florence t-shirt, and
I believe the clock in yourhouse is Venice. So tell us
about Italy. What's going on inItaly?
Mike Ripley (34:42):
I don't know if you can see with the camera. They
know the map on the wall. Ah,that's Venice.
Carolyn Daughters (34:55):
Venice. So you go to Italy. Special, love
of Italy.
Mike Ripley (35:00):
Every year we go anyhow.
Carolyn Daughters (35:05):
And have you said any books in Italy, or
thought about setting books?
Mike Ripley (35:10):
No, no, I haven't.
Actually, that's a thought. No,I'll leave that I have some very
good friends who are Italiancrime writers, and I've made for
over the years, and no funny, Igo and we go to Italy. I take
(35:32):
one book and I never finish itbecause there's too much else to
do. So, but we're going thisSeptember. We're going to place
we've never been before, sothat'll be quite fun. The
Italian Riviera in Terre cinqueor Cinque Terre, and up in the
(35:55):
mountains above Florence.
Amazing.
Carolyn Daughters (36:04):
That's amazing, Sarah. I know you had
another question aboutAllingham, and I have a couple
more questions generally.
Sarah Harrison (36:12):
I just wanted to get, for our listeners and
myself, the general timeline,because this feels like an
unusual situation, right? She'swriting her Albert Campion
novels. And then I hadn'trealized that Youngman Carter,
her husband, took over and wrotea couple when she died. Was he
(36:36):
already a writer? And then, andthen you took over. So her
characters have transferredmultiple
Mike Ripley (36:42):
There's a bit of a gap. Margery Allingham died in
1966, and Youngman Carter diedin 1969 but he had been
primarily a journalist and shortstory writer, and I've even
(37:03):
edited a collection of his shortstories. He was quite good short
story writer, tending towardsthe Gothic, slightly
supernatural things, but again,no sense of humor, and it was
all said that he cooperated withMargery, certainly on the very
(37:25):
early books, he did have aninput, and I think Margery
Allingham would have liked himto have more of an input, but he
had other interests, shall wesay. And then he was away in the
war for a long time, about sixyears of his way. And then he
(37:47):
came back from serving in thearmy, and he became a magazine
editor in London. So he was intomagazines and journalism. So
yes, he was a writer, but hejust didn't do novels. He did a
lot of travel writing as well,and was great wine writer too.
(38:08):
And so eventually, but as he allsaid, he done quite a lot of the
work with the plotting. Andthere are bits in the any, any
of the early Albert Campionbooks, the early Allingham books
where he suddenly starts talkingabout architecture or art,
that's usually young man Carter.
Those were his things. I thinkMargery just thought she'd
(38:31):
better put a bit in to keep himhappy. But so you use a logical
choice to when she because shedied halfway through a book
called cargo of eagles, and thegame was for the fans. Can you
(38:53):
spot the place where he tookover from her chapter seven, I'm
pretty sure of it. But so he hadto finish that one, because that
was being written and when shedied, and then the publishers
(39:14):
obviously said, You finishedone. Can you do it? Do another?
And Margery had planned oneabout a Russian defector in 1967
very hot topic called the Kopeckenigma. And Kopeck being a very
(39:38):
small Russian coin. Well, thepublishers thought nobody would
know what a coffin was, so theycalled it a farthing. So that
became Mr. Campion's Farthing.
And that was told the first soloeffort he did, then he did
another one called Mr. Campion'sFalcon. Lina might have had
(39:58):
slightly different title. InAmerica, because that always
happened, and then he started athird one, and then died, and I
was the same age as he was whenI was started writing my third
Albert Campion book, and I wasdetermined to finish it before
(40:19):
my next birthday, because of thejinx that you do the third one
and you die halfway through. SoI finished that one quite
quickly, so he finished, died in1969 and the bit of the
(40:41):
manuscript he had stayed dormantwithin the Margery Allingham
Society, if you like, until2010, so that's 30-40, years,
and then I resurrected it.
Sarah Harrison (40:55):
Do people play the same game and try and figure
out where you took over in thebook?
Mike Ripley (41:01):
They do, but it's fairly obvious. Is where the
jokes start.
Carolyn Daughters (41:09):
Because your writing style is so different
than his.
Mike Ripley (41:16):
It's not difficult.
I mean, what was slightlyworrying, except for the first
reviews from somebody in Americasaid how brilliant Mike Ripley
had done the opening chaptersare superbly. Said, No, those
weren't, not me.
Carolyn Daughters (41:38):
Well, the humor is such a key part of
Allingham's Albert Campion booksthat I'm glad you recaptured
that.
Mike Ripley (41:51):
I'm glad I was, I hope, in campaigns, Christmas in
particular. So because that isvery much a farce, yes, the
almost quite literally Frenchfast, and people coming in and
going out, and things gettingsillier. There are also lots of
(42:11):
references to James Bond in it,as there are in the first that's
because they were in the firstcamp in what I did in Mr.
Campion's farewell, he sends hisson and his new wife on a
delayed honeymoon down to acasino on the French Riviera,
(42:34):
amazing. And the casino managergreets them and so something
like, oh, it's very hot andsticky, smoke filled atmosphere,
especially at three o'clock inthe morning, which is the
opening paragraph of JamesBond's Casino Royale.
Carolyn Daughters (42:53):
In Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang, you trace the
evolution of the British spythriller. Why do you think it's
the golden age of the thriller?
Why do you think these Britishauthors were so present? So why
did they so powerfully shape thespy genre and that mid-20th
(43:14):
century era?
Mike Ripley (43:20):
Well, the period the book covers is 1953 to 1975
but the late 50s and 60s. Imean, I always said Britain was
losing an empire and becoming athird- or fourth-rate power. So
(43:44):
the only way it could save theworld was through its secret
agents who just happened to befictional. They weren't real
because the real ones wereterrible. They were all
traitors, like Kim Philby. Butit was just a classic example of
the British punching way abovetheir weight with no
(44:04):
justification whatsoever, andjust as we would say, blagging
our way through just putting abrave face on it, convincing
everybody, of course, we'reBritish, so we know what we're
doing. You didn't, and it seemedto work.
Sarah Harrison (44:23):
Well, Mike, we are we are at time for this
episode. But can you stay foranother short episode to dive
into Albert Campion and Mr.
Campion's Christmas a littlebit?
Mike Ripley (44:32):
Sure. I've got wine. I'm fine.
Sarah Harrison (44:36):
All right.
Listeners, you heard it. We'llbring Mike back for the next
episode. Go get go, get your ownglass if you want to join them.
Carolyn Daughters (44:48):
Yes.
Listeners, get your glass.
Sarah Harrison (44:51):
We hope you enjoyed this episode about
Margery Allingham and AlbertCampion. If you did, it would
mean the world to us if youwould subscribe, and then you'll
never miss an episode. Mode, besure to leave us a rating or
review on Apple podcastsSpotify, or wherever you listen
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Carolyn Daughters (45:13):
Please also follow us on Facebook,
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If you like, comment, follow,share rate or review us on any
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Sarah Harrison (45:37):
We want to thank you for joining us on our
journey through the history ofmystery. We absolutely adore you
until next time, StayMysterious.
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