Margery Allingham’s books cover a wide range of themes. To help you decide which book to read next, we have listed out some key themes and which books we recommend for each theme below.
Thrillers/ Psychological
Much of Allingham’s work tends to be light-hearted and vivacious. However, she also wrote darker thrillers brimming with suspense and ominous mystery. She combined vicious central characters, with ‘bright young things’ and interesting older characters. Often these thrillers explore the psychology of a killer.
Strong Women
Allingham wrote a number of really strong, brave and modern women and Campion tends to be surrounded by them. Many of the women have independent means and jobs, agency and determined outlook on life. Others are dangerous or villainous in their strength. Allingham also wrote a number of formidable Grand Dames.
- Amanda Fitton, especially in Sweet Danger, The Fashion in Shrouds, Traitor’s Purse
- Valentine (Val) Ferris and Georgia Wells in The Fashion in Shrouds
- Meggie in The Crime at Black Dudley
- Daisy Shannon, a criminal gang leader, in Look to the Lady
- Edyth in Three is a Lucky Number
- Dr Anne Fowler in The Patient at Peacocks Hall
- Mary in The Shadow in the House
- Betty Conolly in The Darings of the Red Rose
The Ordinary Juxtaposed with the Extraordinary
Allingham is fascinated in the ‘ordinary’ and what it means to the most extraordinary of people and circumstances. Often the normal, routine, and domestic of people and settings are juxtaposed with the most unusual and surprising of events, circumstances, or crimes. This highlights the extraordinary but also makes the reader question their perception of ordinary and wonder what might be hiding behind its façade.
- Police at the Funeral
- The Case of the Late Pig
- The Mind Readers
- The Shadow in the House
- The Oaken Heart
- The White Cottage Mystery
- Safer than Love
Traditional Golden-Age Detective Stories
Allingham is considered one of the queens of Golden-Age of crime novels. Her classical whodunits are filled with rich characters and clever plots. The mysteries are rarely complicated locked-door puzzles, but rather explore ‘why’ the murder happened and the relationships of those surrounding it.
- Police at the Funeral
- Dancers in Mourning
- Coroner’s Pidgin
- More Work for the Undertaker
- Black Plumes
- The White Cottage Mystery
- Wanted: Someone Innocent
Humorous
Many of the Campion novels verge on the farcical or parody more traditional detective stories. Campion especially, with his famously blank expression and witty turns of phrase and approach to investigation, is particularly humorous.
- The Crime at Black Dudley
- Mystery Mile
- Police at the Funeral
- Sweet Danger
- Dancers in Mourning
- The Fashion in Shrouds
- Traitor’s Purse
- Black Plumes
- Blackkerchief Dick
- The White Cottage Mystery
Wartime Britain
Allingham was writing at a time when Britain and Europe were in constant turmoil. She starts writing when Britain is recovering from one war but beginning to speed towards another. Then she finds herself writing during a war when she was actively involved on the home front, something which inspired her autobiographical work The Oaken Heart. Campion himself goes to war and solves mysteries in blitz-stricken Britain. Allingham, like her sleuth, is shaped by the war and it goes on to impact her later novels.
The Occult
Margery Allingham dabbled with the occult in some of her novels and short stories. Famously the inspiration for Blackkerchief Dick arose from a family séance.
