Rogues’ Holiday

＂An ace high mystery, with unexpected situations and new methods used by old rogues＂ from the Golden Age author of the Albert Campion series (Kirkus Reviews).

An apparent suicide at a posh men’s club in London doesn’t fool Scotland Yard Insp. David Blest. There’s something fishy about the old man who quarreled with the victim the night before. The doggedly determined Blest can’t let the matter rest and uses a leave from work to follow his suspect to the coast.

What Blest finds in Westbourne-on-Sea is sun, sand, and suspicious characters, including his elderly target acting as guardian to a sickly girl. But Miss Judy Wellington is only pretending to be ill. Unbeknownst to Blest, she’s really an heiress with a secret inheritance--one that pays off big to her husband if she marries before she turns twenty-five. With only months to go before that deadline, vultures are circling around her. Her guardian’s choice of a husband--a known conman--is killed. All Blest knows is that he’s in too deep, and he’ll protect Judy come hell or high water . . .

＂By modern standards, where anything goes, this a bit of a cosy mix of villainy, romance, intrigue, and mystery. It’s also a bit of a potboiler . . . This story, as much a thriller as mystery, is a fine example of its period and well worth the read, not only for the legions of Allingham fans.＂ --Crime Review

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.