Sweet Danger

I was prompted to read Margery Allingham's Sweet Danger by Susan Green, and also the Secret Life of Books podcast on the Golden Age Queens of Crime; Allingham was the only one I hadn't yet sampled. Sue was right; Sweet Danger is an absolute romp, with lots of action, a preposterous plot and attractively eccentric (and also sinister) side characters, including the smart and lively seventeen year old Amanda, who is destined to become Campion's wife in a few books' time.

I knew that in the early 1990s, the BBC had made a couple of seasons of Campion, starring Peter Davison, and I found one story, Mystery Mile, (two episodes) on YouTube, which I watched to get the flavour of it. This might have been a mistake, because the two stories were quite similar in feel, and some of the characters from Mystery Mile were even referenced in Sweet Danger, and I might have confused myself about some of the plot details. In Davison's autobiography, he regrets that the BBC didn't make more Campion, but points out that they were quite difficult to adapt for television because the plots were so complicated! Apparently the BBC splurged 25,000 pounds on buying the ancient red Lagonda that Campion and offsider Lugg drive -- it worked out cheaper than hiring it for the duration and they were able to resell it at the end of the production and it cost them virtually nothing.

I enjoyed Sweet Danger a lot, and I think I might check out Tiger in the Smoke, which was the novel discussed on SLOB and is considered Allingham's post-war masterpiece.