Review by Booklist Review
Ripley, who took over for Margery Allingham after the esteemed writer's death, has done an outstanding job of capturing the tone, ambiance, gentle humor, and quirky characters of Allingham's beloved Albert Campion series. In Campion's latest adventure, set just after the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, Albert and his wife, Lady Amanda, plan a quiet Christmas with their grown son, Rupert, and family retainer, Lugg, at Carterers, their remote country estate. However, their plans fall apart when a massive blizzard hits and a busload of tourists winds up stranded in their driveway. The eclectic visitors include a loquacious professor, a Dutchman determined to keep a prized possession safe, a mousy village postmistress, a quiet priest, and three American military men. But what Albert and Amanda don't know is that the stranded bus is part of a dangerous plan to use aeronautical engineer Lady Amanda and her top-secret military work to embarrass the British government. Thus, the Campions must use their cunning to foil this treacherous plan and nab the villains. A joy to read, and a fitting send-off for Ripley's tenure with the series.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Ripley continues his impressive run of channeling Margery Allingham in his shrewd 12th whodunit featuring Allingham's Albert Campion (after Mr. Campion's Memory), which finds the aristocratic sleuth puzzling out a snowy closed-circle mystery. In 1962, Albert is celebrating Christmas at home in Norfolk with his wife and son when a blizzard strikes. The conditions lead the family to invite their housekeeper and her elderly father-in-law to wait out the weather with them. Then a bus from London crashes into the Campions' gates, leaving its driver and seven passengers--three American soldiers, a priest, a professor, a postmistress, and a historian--in need of shelter. As Albert and his family scramble to accommodate the guests, one of them turns up dead, with a broken neck. Albert instantly assumes that the killer must be under his roof, but Ripley cleverly switches gears after the investigation gets underway, steering the proceedings out of golden age territory and toward a suspenseful espionage plot. He keeps tensions high until the gratifying conclusion, and his characterizations--particularly of Albert--are spot-on. This is a refreshingly surprise-packed entry in an always excellent series. (Nov.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
As Ripley's bittersweet closing note makes clear, his 12th addition to the decorous chronicles of Margery Allingham's beloved English sleuth will be his last. It's also a good deal less decorous than most of the others. The day after Christmas 1962 finds a severe snowstorm barreling toward Carterers, the Norfolk home to Albert Campion and his wife, aeronautical engineer Lady Amanda Fitton. Also headed their way is a bus thrown so far behind schedule by the blizzard that three American Air Force officers aboard it suggest to driver Graham Fisk that he diverge from his ordained path to seek the nearest town. En route, the bus plows into the entry gate to Carterers, where the passengers seek refuge. No sooner have Campion and Amanda surveyed the crowd--retired vicar Elis Breck, Dutch art dealer Fred De Vries, Devon postmistress Florence Pounder, Professor Hereward Henderson, and those Americans--than the phone lines go dead and they realize that this Boxing Day will be unique. Things get worse when one of the new arrivals is found dead, and worse still when Campion learns that not all of his unwilling guests are who they pretend to be. At least one of them, in fact, is a Russian agent plotting a most improbable revenge for the Soviet Union's recent embarrassment over the Cuban missile crisis. So, what starts as a Christmas cozy, with a snowstorm sealing off the playing field from the rest of the world, turns into a game of cat-and-mouse between a group of strangers seeking to rally their very different gifts behind a common cause and a well-armed enemy who'll stop at nothing. A surprisingly lively adventure that belies its heroine's ironic summary: "Sounds like a traditional Christmas to me." Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
