Cargo of Eagles (1968)
My review:
Map.
Surprisingly good, considering that this was the author’s last book, left unfinished at her death and completed by Philip Youngman Carter, and that it follows the ghastly Mind Readers. Instead of a plotless rambling catastrophe one may have expected, we have what is possibly her best (certainly her most entertaining) work since More Work for the Undertaker. The setting is the Essex village of Saltey, first cousin to Howling and Saxon Wall, with its criminally-inclined natives, long history of smuggling, and, in the present, modern piracy, espionage, murder, poison-pen and half-buried village scandals, demonstrating “the basic human delight in doing evil if the opportunity to do so undetected occurs.” These ingredients, combined with a busy plot, make for an energetic story with plenty of romance and adventure.
On his final appearance in Allingham’s works, Campion is rather an odd figure, a chameleon and weaver of webs, rather than the gallant adventurer of youth, as he hovers mysteriously in the background, organising extremely subtle plots only half understood by the reader.