Traitor's Purse

“If I had to vote for the single best detective story, this would be it.” —A.S. Byatt

Celebrated amateur detective Albert Campion awakes in hospital, accused of attacking a police officer and suffering from acute amnesia. All he can remember is that he was on a mission of vital importance to His Majesty’s government before his accident. On the run from the police and unable to recognize even his faithful servant or his beloved fiancée, Campion struggles desperately to put the pieces together—while World War II rages and the very fate of England is at stake.

Published in 1941, Traitor’s Purse is “a wartime masterpiece” (The Guardian).

“Uncommonly exciting stuff, replete with Allingham’s skill in story-building and the plausible characters that make her as much a fine novelist as a mystery writer.” —The New Republic

“Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light. And she has another quality, not usually associated with crime stories, elegance.” —Agatha Christie

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.