The Fashion in Shrouds
(1938)
My review:
One of the author’s most accomplished novels. At once elegant and deftly observed social satire in the manner of Trollope and Galsworthy and an ingeniously complicated detective story, the book is virtually flawless. Campion is in superb form throughout, both as detective pitting his wits against a super-human Nemesis of a murderer, and as a lover (even going so far as to throw his fiancée into the lake in a quarrel); Lugg is as amusing as ever; and there is much interest in the character and methods of the fiend, “who can set the murderous Machiavel to school,” weaving his wits of a subtlety and diabolical ingenuity matched only by those of his creator.