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A review by cardica
Cargo Of Eagles by Margery Allingham
4.0
Here on Death of the Reader, it’s a rare stop on your Murder Mystery World Tour that gets a double-feature. Often it’s to show the stark contrast between two portrayals, sometimes over decades, and the chosen double for this year was Albert Campion. Coming in at 12th for our 2022 recommendations, Cargo of Eagles was the final Campion novel penned by the series’ creator, Margery Allingham, one of the oft-lauded four queens of Golden Age Crime. More spy-thriller than mystery, Campion’s novels snuck their way onto your Murder Mystery World Tour on account of the legend that the spytective was originally envisioned as a parody of Dorothy L. Sayers’ Lord Peter Wimsey, and also because there are some fantastic novels in the Campion catalogue.
The question is, does Cargo of Eagles quite fit ‘fantastic’? Finished posthumously for Allingham by her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, Cargo of Eagles follows an aged-but-not-quite-old Campion to the coastal town of Saltey, traipsed in a long history of skulduggery. It’s actually a young American by the name of Mortimer Kelsey, in Campion’s employ who finds himself on the front lines unfolding the confoundments this once-piratical-haven has to offer. Their first point of contact, Hector Askew, is found dead with a dirge playing from a haunted radio in his hands, and so the cat and mouse game with an absent antagonist begins. Through the decades, Saltey has been home to notorious criminals, daring escapes and fierce rivalries. It’s unclear if those rivalries are boiling over, or the town’s reputation has brought in a new generation of nerdowells to confront Campion’s informal espionage agency.
The town is laden with blunt metaphors, centred around the local pub, ‘The Demon’, and Mossy, an old man at the establishment who will chew any patron’s ear off about the actual demon, or is it a ghost, he saw around in the town. Other patrons speak of seemingly simple deaths and disappearances in the town’s history that begin to draw the hunger of the press, pinching even harder on the nerves of generational powers in the town. Morty is almost conscripted into becoming the town’s historian as the various leads direct him to artefacts both proverbially and literally buried in the town’s past. Whilst the novel tackles history, the town tackles youth. A large background piece to the novel is the youth culture of the sixties, and it’s painfully apparent that its written with a curmudgeonly navel-gazing that does not fit the young leading duo whose eyes we peer through for most of the novel. It’s a fun gag when we’re visiting Stanislaus Oates and reminiscing on Campion’s own departed youth, now a father of a man his own age when he started the franchise. As good as it is with Oates, that also makes it clear the inner voice of the novel is a bit too homogenous, jaded relative to what it claims the young upstarts on the front lines are like.
Speaking of Oates, Allingham and Carter take us on a heartfelt tour of Campion’s many career long allies. Many theories have been posed over the years as to where the handover between the pair of authors happened, and you might spot a few odd shifts in the writing as you go, but regardless, it’s clear there was a yearning nostalgia as the couple worked on their last novel. Beyond nostalgia for Campion’s decades past, there’s also homages to Allingham and Carter’s relationship, like our lead woman being named ‘Dido’, in reference to Allingham’s production of ‘Dido and Aeneas’, for which Carter designed the sets not long after they met. Campion himself, is a curious case as he contends both with his age, and its constant clashes with his position as crime-fiction protagonist. Campion’s dalliances with dangerous situations are delightful as his wit and preparation sneak him through doors Morty remains blissfully unaware of. Cleverly, you often don’t get to see the entirety of Campion’s plans, until their results spring from the shadows, which pay off surprisingly well considering how close some cards are played to Allingham and Carters’ chests.
Cargo of Eagles isn’t quite as embroiled in the tension or momentum of some of the more famous - or youthful - Campion novels. The thematics & atmosphere don’t sing quite as strong, but the pacing still serves the strong beats of the novel incredibly well. You won't find the gargantuan spy-fiction characters or country-damning schemes, but the push-and-pull between a sculpted core cast and the crucial moments they inhabit compel the novel to an understated elegance. The seam between the authors is perhaps most obvious in that the ending is crowded by an unnecessary explanation of the how-dunnit, but given its spy-fiction heritage, you’ll probably not find it anywhere as painful as the mathematics-textbook of even some very well-regarded locked-room mysteries.
Cargo of Eagles comes in at 12th on our most-recommended list for 2022. It is an undeniably important part of the Campion canon. A heartfelt read reminiscing on both its protagonists’ storied careers, and its authors’ decades-long partnership. It’s not the most exciting thriller in the collection, or the most intricate mystery, but you’ll easily come away satisfied, especially if you are stopping by as part of a tour of Allingham’s broader catalogue. You definitely should not start with Cargo of Eagles - sorry Lachlan, by the way - but it also teeters on the scales of ‘must-readability’ if you are taking a slice of the best of the franchise, at the very least because of its contextual significance.
The question is, does Cargo of Eagles quite fit ‘fantastic’? Finished posthumously for Allingham by her husband, Philip Youngman Carter, Cargo of Eagles follows an aged-but-not-quite-old Campion to the coastal town of Saltey, traipsed in a long history of skulduggery. It’s actually a young American by the name of Mortimer Kelsey, in Campion’s employ who finds himself on the front lines unfolding the confoundments this once-piratical-haven has to offer. Their first point of contact, Hector Askew, is found dead with a dirge playing from a haunted radio in his hands, and so the cat and mouse game with an absent antagonist begins. Through the decades, Saltey has been home to notorious criminals, daring escapes and fierce rivalries. It’s unclear if those rivalries are boiling over, or the town’s reputation has brought in a new generation of nerdowells to confront Campion’s informal espionage agency.
The town is laden with blunt metaphors, centred around the local pub, ‘The Demon’, and Mossy, an old man at the establishment who will chew any patron’s ear off about the actual demon, or is it a ghost, he saw around in the town. Other patrons speak of seemingly simple deaths and disappearances in the town’s history that begin to draw the hunger of the press, pinching even harder on the nerves of generational powers in the town. Morty is almost conscripted into becoming the town’s historian as the various leads direct him to artefacts both proverbially and literally buried in the town’s past. Whilst the novel tackles history, the town tackles youth. A large background piece to the novel is the youth culture of the sixties, and it’s painfully apparent that its written with a curmudgeonly navel-gazing that does not fit the young leading duo whose eyes we peer through for most of the novel. It’s a fun gag when we’re visiting Stanislaus Oates and reminiscing on Campion’s own departed youth, now a father of a man his own age when he started the franchise. As good as it is with Oates, that also makes it clear the inner voice of the novel is a bit too homogenous, jaded relative to what it claims the young upstarts on the front lines are like.
Speaking of Oates, Allingham and Carter take us on a heartfelt tour of Campion’s many career long allies. Many theories have been posed over the years as to where the handover between the pair of authors happened, and you might spot a few odd shifts in the writing as you go, but regardless, it’s clear there was a yearning nostalgia as the couple worked on their last novel. Beyond nostalgia for Campion’s decades past, there’s also homages to Allingham and Carter’s relationship, like our lead woman being named ‘Dido’, in reference to Allingham’s production of ‘Dido and Aeneas’, for which Carter designed the sets not long after they met. Campion himself, is a curious case as he contends both with his age, and its constant clashes with his position as crime-fiction protagonist. Campion’s dalliances with dangerous situations are delightful as his wit and preparation sneak him through doors Morty remains blissfully unaware of. Cleverly, you often don’t get to see the entirety of Campion’s plans, until their results spring from the shadows, which pay off surprisingly well considering how close some cards are played to Allingham and Carters’ chests.
Cargo of Eagles isn’t quite as embroiled in the tension or momentum of some of the more famous - or youthful - Campion novels. The thematics & atmosphere don’t sing quite as strong, but the pacing still serves the strong beats of the novel incredibly well. You won't find the gargantuan spy-fiction characters or country-damning schemes, but the push-and-pull between a sculpted core cast and the crucial moments they inhabit compel the novel to an understated elegance. The seam between the authors is perhaps most obvious in that the ending is crowded by an unnecessary explanation of the how-dunnit, but given its spy-fiction heritage, you’ll probably not find it anywhere as painful as the mathematics-textbook of even some very well-regarded locked-room mysteries.
Cargo of Eagles comes in at 12th on our most-recommended list for 2022. It is an undeniably important part of the Campion canon. A heartfelt read reminiscing on both its protagonists’ storied careers, and its authors’ decades-long partnership. It’s not the most exciting thriller in the collection, or the most intricate mystery, but you’ll easily come away satisfied, especially if you are stopping by as part of a tour of Allingham’s broader catalogue. You definitely should not start with Cargo of Eagles - sorry Lachlan, by the way - but it also teeters on the scales of ‘must-readability’ if you are taking a slice of the best of the franchise, at the very least because of its contextual significance.