Look to the Lady

“Wonderfully plotted . . . A marvelous mixture of witchcraft, sacred relics and ancient oaths. [Allingham was a] rare and precious talent.” —The Washington Post
 
Estranged from his father, young Percival St. John Wykes Gyrth wanders the streets of London, penniless and homeless, until he’s lured to the house of gentleman sleuth Albert Campion. An underground ring of the most powerful and wealthy art collectors in the world have turned their attention to the Gyrth Chalice, a state treasure guarded by the family for centuries.
 
To stop its theft, Campion and Val head back to the family seat in Suffolk, where folklore and ancient superstitions abound—and where, in its supposedly haunted woods, Val’s aunt is found literally scared to death. With Val’s coming-of-age ritual approaching—in which he is initiated into the secret of the Chalice—Campion must sort through new religion followers, landed gentry, suspicious villagers, and a cast of London’s ne’er-do-wells for suspects, all while putting his own life on the line.
 
Praise for Margery Allingham
 
“Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light.” —Agatha Christie
 
“The best of mystery writers.” —The New Yorker
 
“Don’t start reading these books unless you are confident that you can handle addiction.” —The Independent
 
“One of the finest Golden-Age crime novelists.” —The Sunday Telegraph
 
“Spending an evening with Campion is one of life’s pure pleasures.” —The Sunday Times
 

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.