Flowers for the Judge

Gentleman sleuth Albert Campion tries to solve the murder of a prominent publisher in this “vivid and witty” British mystery (The New York Times).

Scandal hits the prestigious publishing house of Barnabas when one of the directors is found dead in a locked cellar. All eyes are on the other partners at the firm—cousins of the dead man with much to gain from his demise—and all rumors hint at a connection to the disappearance of another director decades earlier. Desperate to salvage their reputation, the cousins turn to Albert Campion—but will his investigations clear the Barnabas family name, or besmirch it forever?

“My very favourite of the four Queens of Crime is Allingham.” —J. K. Rowling

“Ms. Allingham has a strong, controlled sense of humour and is never dull.” —Times Literary Supplement

Margery Allingham, born in 1904 to Emily and Herbert Allingham, was an esteemed English novelist, author, and editor of Christian Globe and the New London Journal. Considered one of the four “Queens of Crime” from the golden age of detective fiction, Allingham began writing stories and plays at a young age and published her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick, at 19. She later studied drama and speech training at Regent Street Polytechnic in London. Allingham is best known for her character Albert Campion, a sleuth first introduced in The Crime of Black Dudley. Campion was featured in seventeen subsequent novels, and even more short stories. Allingham continued to write until her death on June 30, 1966.