Marjorie Allingham

Of the four Queens of Golden Age Mystery, Margery Allingham has been the least easy read. I suspect it’s because her Albert Campion comes across on the page in some of the early novels as so free of intriguing quirks that, to the uninitiated, he seems rather a milquetoast. However, he seldom fails to come across as arch, annoyingly omniscient, and he doesn’t even use his own name in his adventures due to hush-hush royal connections.