Flowers for the Judge

An Albert Campion Mystery

De: Margery Allingham

Narrado por: David Thorpe

Scandal hits the staid publishing house of Barnabas when one of the directors is found dead in the strong-room. Suspicion immediately falls on his wife's lover, the junior partner in the firm. But how does an unpublished Restoration comedy come to feature in the tragedy? And what of the odd disappearance of another director twenty years before?

The trial of Mike Wedgwood for murder is nail-bitingly tense, and Albert Campion needs all his resources to uncover the truth.

Margery Allingham was born in Ealing, London in 1904 to a family immersed in literature. Her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick, was published in 1923 when she was 19. Her first work of detective fiction was a serialized story published by the Daily Express in 1927. Entitled The White Cottage Mystery, it contained atypical themes for a woman writer of the era.

Her breakthrough occurred in 1929 with the publication of The Crime at Black Dudley. This introduced Albert Campion, albeit originally as a minor character. He returned in Mystery Mile, thanks in part to pressure from her American publishers, much taken with the character. Campion proved so successful that Allingham made him the centrepiece of another 17 novels and over 20 short stories, continuing into the 1960s.

©2013 Margery Allingham (P)2013 Audible Ltd

Great reader overall

Fun story, only complaint was Gina’s voice. The American accent was all over the place! Great otherwise.

Enjoyable slower read

I didn't read this straight through, but that is my reading style. The voice for Campion was a bit grating at first until I realized it fit his character perfectly. Campion WANTS to be overlooked and dismissed and the narrator chose well in how he voiced him.
I must be off my game, but the ending caught me twice. I won't say how, that would mean spoilers, but I will say, it was a satisfactory ending.

Best Albert Campion yet!

Best Albert Campion yet! Glad I stuck with the series - great story, wonderful characters.

Clever Story Line

And Campion is well read and portrayed. Sometimes I lost track of details. very enjoyable

Classic mystery, well read

This is a classic golden era mystery presented with a very good narrator. Everything I could want.

One of the Best!

Very memorable. Love this narrator. The Campion books are variable, but this one is out of the box without being goofy. A delicious listen.

An excellent classic mystery

In <strong>Flowers for the Judge</strong> by Margery Allingham, the members of the Barnabus family publishing house ask family friend Albert Campion to help them because Paul Brande, the middle of the three partner cousins, disappeared three days earlier. They aren't worrying enough to call in the police because he has taken off without advanced notice before, though not usually this long. In addition, 20 years earlier, his older cousin Thomas Barnabus disappeared into thin air, to the witness of a newsman and a beat cop, never to be heard from again. Things change a couple days later when a secretary of the publisher goes downstairs to the strong room and finds Paul's body. The doctor declares that Paul has been dead for days, but Mike Wedgwood, the youngest cousin, just went downstairs the day before. Why did he not see the body then? Then police find a hose that was used to pump carbon monoxide from Mike's car into the room where Peter was found, definitely making this murder. These already suspicious circumstances, plus the knowledge that Gina Brande intended to ask Paul for a divorce on the very night he disappeared, being in love with Mike, cause the jury at the inquest to indict Mike for murder.

With the certainty that Mike did not commit this crime, Campion goes to work to both prove Mike's innocence and find the real killer. He is assisted by Ritchie Barnabus, the somewhat simple-minded younger brother of Thomas Barnabus, the man who disappeared 20 years earlier. Campion's other cohort is his manservant, Lugg, a former burglar proud of both his past achievements and the rise in station he has made under Campion.

<strong>Flowers for the Judge</strong> was my second introduction to Margery Allingham, with <em>The Crime at Black Dudley</em>, Allingham's introduction to Campion, being my first book by her. I was decidedly unimpressed by the first book, but this book was a dramatic departure from that one. It contains a fascinating plot, considered a classic "locked room mystery," since the murdered man was found dead inside the strong room. Reviews of the book online focus on the romance plot as being significant to the book, with the two lovers having to undergo a trial by fire in order to be together. Personally, I did not find the romance plot to be any more significant than those found in the writings of the other queens of mystery: Agatha Christie, Ngaio Marsh, and Dorothy L. Sayers. Perhaps it is unusual for Allingham, something I would not have personal knowledge of.

I do not understand the title, and performing a Google search didn't serve to enlighten me much. At the end of the trial, the judge in the case carries his flowers out of the courtroom, which only one site I found mentions, pointing out that the aroma of the flowers can't overcome the bad smell of the justice system. But where did these flowers come from, especially since I didn't notice a reference to flowers earlier? Is there a tradition in the British judicial system involving flowers? Why does the title of the book reference just one obscure line in the book?

The characters in <strong>Flowers for the Judge</strong> are generally fleshed out well. Actually, Campion seems to be one of the least developed characters in the book, although I gather that over the course of the series, Campion becomes full and round. As for the other characters, even though we never meet Peter alive, we get a strong image of him, and he is not a nice person. Gina, despite being in love with a man not her husband in 1936, when she could not get a divorce without proof of abuse, is the sympathetic woman waiting for her man, who is on trial. The barrister, Cousin Alexander, was a real delight, especially as he reverts back and forth between his courtroom voice and casual voice.

The good guy in the book with the profound statements is the eccentric Ritchie, who speaks in abbreviated sentences. He makes a profound statement about the people who allow society to define them and control their movements, comparing such people to the people in the prison who can't eat on their own or drink on their own but only when allowed. The truly free are those who have managed to break away from the chains of society and do their own thing.

The audio edition of this book is performed by David Thorpe, who does a good job with certain parts and a less effective job with others. I liked his female voices and the way he voices Ritchie. However, the squeaky voice used for the role of Albert Campion really annoyed me. Otherwise, I felt that Thorpe did a reasonable but not excellent job on this book.

I really appreciated listening to <strong>Flowers for the Judge</strong>. The book had a strong mystery plot with well- rounded characters. I am glad that I took the advice of other lovers of golden age mystery and gave Allingham another chance. I give this book five stars.

ALWAYS A PLEASURE

Margery Allingham never writes down to her reader, nor resorts to feeble devices to make the novel appealing. Her style and stories are interesting enough that sometimes I forget which one I am listening to; the pleasure of following along on the trail of her clever prose and well-wrought characters is worth the effort without any need for periodic fixes of violence, lame social commentary, gender engineering or cute twists. It's always a pleasure to settle back and let Campion's adventures flow from one side of my head to the other.

A mystery within a murder

This is my favorite Campion, I think. at least for today. Brilliant writing excellently performed by Mr. David Thorpe. This is a repeat-listen and I am just as delighted todau as I was the 1 st time I heard this book.

More Nuanced Than Other Campions

This is one of the Campion series that I saw first in its television dramatization. I was pleasantly surprised at the additional twists of plot and more interesting character development to be had from listening to this unabridged reading. Alingham's romantic plot lines often seem weaker to me than her character studies, but in this case she believably portrays the effect of traumatic stress on a relationship, while also maintaining the basic mystery plot. A unifying undercurrent of camouflaged identity runs through the story, making it intriguing to read as a novel, beyond the puzzle presented by the mystery. I've been a Francis Matthews fan for years, and have a hard time adjusting to the squeaky voice that David Thorpe gives Campion. I have to confess that Thorpe's reading is likely closest to Allingham's intention for the character, however, and the other characters are masterfully done.