Also: a book I finished earlier this week and never mentioned.

I am, as I've said before, a big fan of mystery novels. I am particularly fond of what's sometimes known as Golden Age British Mystery, in other words, novels written (and set) between the World Wars in Britain. Usually the characters are middle or upper-middle class, sometimes the detective is actually a "talented amateur" or non-police-operative (e.g., Hercule Poirot).

My favorites (of the ones I've read) of this genre are Ngaio Marsh's Inspector Alleyn mysteries, and Margery Allingham's Albert Campion mysteries.

I do think Marsh's mysteries are better-written and more believable. But I find Allingham's to be more entertaining, and often that's what you want.

The most recent read was "The Fear Sign" (also published as "Sweet Danger," and possible under other titles as well. Why do publishers DO that? I bought "Sweet Danger" from a bookseller before reading "The Fear Sign" (which I already had) and now I realize they are the SAME book. Ugh.)

Anyway. I've read four or five of the Campion mysteries, and I think this one has to be my favorite.

It starts out with a young man observing a fellow absconding from a hotel...which turns out to not merely be someone "shooting the moon," but is an important part that gets the plot going. Guffy (the young man) finds his old friend Albert Campion, standing in as the "Hereditary Monarch of Averna" (in the absence of being able to establish the REAL "Hereditary Monarch.")

What, you say? You've never heard of "Averna"? Or any "hereditary monarch" of same?

Well, repeat to yourself: this is just a book, and I should really just relax.

"Averna" is a tiny principality somewhere on the Adriatic. It was originally a worthless piece of land - a valley surrounded by mountains - until a landslide opened up a sort of natural port. AND oil happened to be discovered under "Averna."

And here comes the nice intrigue. "Averna" turns out to (apparently) be owned by a British aristocratic family, the Pontisbrights - apparently something to do with someone having done something heroic in a war and having been rewarded with it. (And later, the family officially "bought" it from a possibly-crooked land broker, just to be sure).

Anyway - there are apparently no official scions of the family left. However, there's what may or may not be a wrong-side-of-the-blanket branch that lives in a mill not too far from the ruined estate of the family that had title to Averna.

Confused yet? (It's less confusing in the book).

Anyway. The goal is to find who, in fact, has legal claim to Averna, because Campion's shadowy "employers" (presumably His Majesty's government - His Majesty being most likely George V, whether the book is "set" when it was written is unclear). Because - well, OIL.

So, Campion, and Guffy, and two other friends set off (oh, and Lugg, also - Campion's ex-con manservant) for Suffolk to look up this family (the Fittons), and to find proofs of the British ownership of Averna.

The problem (there has to be a problem, no?) is that Brett Savanake (you may boo and hiss when his name is mentioned) also wants access to Averna. Presumably for nefarious purposes. And Savanake is one mean motor-scooter. You don't mess with him because he could make you dead, and dead in such a way that no one would ever find you.

Campion and company meet the Fittons - two daughters (Mary and Amanda) and a son (Hal). There's also an "American" aunt (Aunt Hatt Huntingforest) staying with them.

A lot of the entertaining part of the book comes from Amanda - who is in some respects, a woman before her times - she is knowledgeable about car repair, runs a dynamo (she makes a bit of money charging up batteries for townfolk using the mill's dynamo, which the implication is, she built). She's fairly strong and good at keeping her head in an emergency.

It gets more complex. There's also an insane doctor, who is apparently into the occult arts. And there's a mystical inscription, and a crown, and a bell, and a drum. And there's this general distrust of outsiders, most markedly seen in the fellow who runs the local pub.

It is a considerably less "realistic" story (though, I suppose, technically, there's nothing in it that's literally impossible) than most of the Ngaio Marsh Alleyn novels, but that's what makes it so entertaining.

(Well, that, and the fact that the end is very suspenseful and is one of those things that's almost a Rube Goldberg machine of bits and pieces having to fall into place).

One thing that rang a little untrue was Dr. Galley and the related "occult" stuff. It was originally described as the idea that he had been "dabbling" in the old, pre-Christian beliefs of the area...presumably old fertility cults, old healing techniques, old procedures related to death and dying. And yet, at the climax of the book, when the characters are in danger from this doctor...he calls on a pagan god from one of the Middle Eastern cultures. And the whole thing just sort of didn't work,in the context of the book, I mean. It was overly melodramatic. (Which is saying a lot, given some of the events nearer the end of the book. But it rang false and was the one disappointing thing about the story). (And no, no demon appeared - the general conclusion from all involved is that the doctor was a nutter who had no actual powers but had gone over to believing and worshipping stuff he ought not.)

(Ngaio Marsh wrote a book - Death of a Fool - where some of the old fertility rites were a feature of the story, and those were well-done - you felt like Marsh had done her research or at least was good at faking it; she was writing about the Morris dances which supposedly at their most basic root were an old agrarian fertility thing from the pagan days in Britain).

At any rate - with that one exception it's an extremely entertaining book. Fairly complex plot, Lugg gets off some good one-liners, Campion has to dress up in drag (for more than a day), evil is vanquished (at least for now) and things are made right at the end. Which is how it should be in any detective story, I tend to think.