Traitor's Purse

Traitor's Purse by Margery Allingham
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I picked this book up on a lark. I happened to be in a book store in Door County and saw this mystery on the cheap paperback shelf and thought "I haven't read a good mystery in a while. I'll give it a try."

Keep in mind that Traitor's Purse is one in a series of mystery novels about Albert Campion. I had no knowledge of the background of the character. I swore that if I got too lost and felt that I would need to back-read one of the preceding novels, I was going to lem the book. Thankfully, that didn't happen.

The reason is, the main character starts out waking up in a hospital bed with no memory of why he is there or even who he is (I've kind of experienced this myself, after my back surgery years ago). Tabula Rasa right from the get-go; we learn to know Albert Campion as he gets to know himself. And it sort of works.

I have to wonder, though, how much of the plot Allingham actually knew as she wrote the novel. It seems to meander, at times, with several oddly-placed sidenotes. Toward the end, things felt thrown-together. The reveal-ation of Campion's memories is very, very clumsy. It could have been much better had I felt that Allingham had a stronger auctorial voice. Strength of prose can carry an otherwise mediocre work to new heights, especially in a mystery novel (or, at least, it did in the few mystery novels I have read). I kept hoping that the novel would resolve itself more strongly and really come together, but it never really did.

I am, of course, lacking all context. Maybe if I had read a Campion novel or two before, or even one after, I might have a stronger connection with the plot. But maybe this is why I largely don't like reading series - give me what I need as a reader, please. In the words of Queen: "I want it all, and I want it now!"

I enjoyed the novel, but was often confused. More confused than I felt I ought to be. The most appropriate quote to describe how I felt is found in the book itself:

"He was trying to fit together a jigsaw puzzle without knowing what sort of picture the pieces were expected to make."

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