Police at the Funeral by Margery AllinghamMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Allingham was an excellent writer, providing suspense and mystification and wonderful plot twists while describing her eccentric characters memorably. Here we have a Victorian matriarch presiding over a household in which her middle-aged children and nephew are forced to live, because they have lost what money they had and have no skills with which to earn any. It's a kind of hell on earth, and it's not astonishing that murder breaks out.
Campion, who isn't exactly a private detective but isn't exactly not one either, is called in (the only young member of the family is engaged to someone he was at university with), and handles the situation with his usual combination of keen intelligence and an appearance of near-idiocy. There's some sometimes grumpy and sometimes friendly rivalry from his old friend the Scotland Yard inspector, and Campion has a desperate physical fight to deal with before the end.
The final twist is terrific, and beautifully carried off.
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