Mr Campion's Visit is the newest book in an homage to Margery Allingham's Albert Campion. Released 1st Oct by Severn House, it's 256 pages and available in hardcover, paperback, and ebook formats.

Author Mike Ripley has written several books featuring Campion (this is the 6th by my count) as well as other fiction and nonfiction. The point is, he's an experienced and capable author. I've been a fan of golden age mystery (especially British) as long as I've been reading, more or less, and I'm always on the lookout for more golden age fiction since the original authors are sadly long gone.

This entry finds a more or less 'grown up' (i.e. old) Campion revisiting Suffolk and Black Dudley in 1970, a half century since his very first outing there in 1920. The country house has become part of a modern University. He is meant to be a distinguished visitor, but winds up getting drawn into a murder investigation when one of the faculty is murdered. Classic set up, classic style, and the author is almost spookily adept at channeling Allingham's original prose and flow (no mean feat).

This was a perfect autumn cozy mystery read for me, gently humorous, beautifully British, restrained but quite funny (and blissfully free of talking cats and recipes at the end of the book). Lugg is back and, as always, a perfect counterpoint to Campion's affably bewildered facade.

The plot is straightforward and the tension arc gently meandering (like the original source material). In fact, one of the most impressive parts of the book is that is manages to read as if it were modern at the time, in other words, slightly dated because it was written in 1970.

I enjoyed this one very much and although I was previously unaware of the author's other Campion books, it works very well as a standalone. I will be picking up the other 5 books immediately.

Four and a half for the plot and the capable and respectful Campion homage, rounded up for Lugg. I've been a devoted Lugg groupie for 30+ years.

It's the first book I read featuring Albert Campion by this author and won't surely be the last.
Even if it's a bit slow at the beginning it's an engrossing and entertaining read, perfect for fans of British mysteries of the Golden Age.
Albert Campion is well written and I didn't feel any huge difference comparing him to Margery Allingham's Campion.
The mystery was good, full of twists and turns, and I read it as fast as I could.
The historical background is realistic and I love the descriptions of the setting.
I look forward to reading the next instalment in this series.
Recommended!
Many thanks to Severn House and Netgalley for this ARC, all opinions are mine.

Mike Ripley continues Margery Allingham's Albert Campion series in Mr. Campion's Visit. Black Dudley in Sussex, the site of murder and mayhem back in Campion's early career, is now a new university. Albert Campion is at the university as the Visitor, representative of Anglican Bishop and friend of the students. Then murder strikes a South American university geologist. Whodunit? Student, professor, worker? Lots of red herrings. The professor was disliked for hogging the computer time for his research and for romancing the female students, professors and staff. Classic cozy.

Taking place in 1970, Campion is pinch-hitting as the official Visitor to a new university on the Suffolk coast with the job of saying some welcoming words to new students.. While there a brutal murder occurs. Of course Albert begins snopping around, although it's more or less official this time.

He uncovers plenty of less-than-respectible behavior and gets a good look at modern architecture and the doings of a modern university. Ultimately and with eleventh-hour help from Lugg, he solves the murder.

One fault with the book is Ripley's anachronistic language. While he's accurate about 70's fashions and habits, he occasionally puts in contemporary language when he should know better. For example "vegan" wasn't a word in 1970. If there were vegans then they were simply called "vegetarians." He should be more careful because his incorrect words clang in his nicely-written books.

Although in general I like Ripley's additions to the Campion corpus, they don't really hold a candle to Allingham's. Even so, it's a delightful comedy of manners.

My first thought upon starting this book was how much the writing reminded me of classic English detective novels. Having picked this mystery entirely based on the appeal of its setting, a university in England in 1970, I had failed to realize that the author was continuing a classic mystery series by Margery Allingham. I had not read any of her books and did not recognize the protagonist.

The witty, old-fashioned dialogue is delightful. It probably helps that I needed a break from domestic suspense novels (if I see one more “Girl”/ “Lies”/“Trust” title, I might fling the book out a window). What better antidote than a traditional English murder mystery?

I was completely enjoying the genteel repartee of Albert Campion and the various characters at University of Suffolk Coastal, until at some point I looked up and realized that I was fully a quarter of the way through a murder mystery and there was not actually a, you know, murder. It’s pretty much a bunch of people milling around campus engaging in witty banter, without any crime whatsoever in need of investigating.

A murder does occur more or less immediately after I came to this belated realization, and from then on our protagonist actually has something to do. Campion goes about his investigation competently. He is entertainingly self-aware about how much he seems like a golden age detective, and he makes occasional knowing jokes about assembling the suspects in the library, etc. The pace of the book is leisurely, and the ending is not a huge revelation. I can’t say how this book compares to Margery Allingham’s original series, but I liked it enough that I will probably try one of those.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a digital advance review copy.

Thank you to NetGalley and Severn House Publishers for an e-Galley of this novel.

Mike Ripley continues to bring back the atmosphere surrounding Albert Campion first penned by Margery Allingham. In this story Mr. Campion's visit is to the University of Suffolk Costal where he is feeling his way into taking the position of Visitor. Largely ceremonial, as Campion has been told multiple times, he would still like to know exactly what he's gotten himself in for. This university was the brainchild of the Bishop of St. Edmondsbury ten years ago. Since the university has been up and running the bishop is finding he has more and more trouble controlling what goes on there. Enter Albert Campion as his eyes and ears when the latest term starts up. What follows closely behind is murder.

The old manor house of Black Dudley has been repaired and remodeled to serve as offices and the residence of the vice chancellor. It has been forty years since Campion was involved in the mysterious happenings of that grim, dark house but it still looks the same from the outside. I think it was an interesting idea to have Campion go back to the location of the original beginning of the Allingham series, but the house itself doesn't figure much into the modern mystery. The atmosphere was created but the house mostly interacts with the story from a distance. Campion spends a lot of time realizing that he's now 70 years old throughout this book. When Lugg appears he seems quite a bit younger in attitude than Albert even if not physically. Because so much attention was paid to Albert's age I spent an inordinate amount of time thinking about it too. Can he carry on much longer? Not that age would keep him from solving problems, but it would probably begin to cut down on his galivanting all over the countryside to do so. This was a pleasure to read (when I wasn't thinking about Albert's age) and the mystery is a pretty good one. Technology is captured by the room sized computer mainframe and the scholars having to share computer time.

I received this ARC via Netgalley & the publisher in return for an honest review. This book combines a classic sleuth, returning to the English college after an absence of several decades. This book is a continuation of a current author's works on Marjorie Allingham's original Albert Campion 'classic British' mysteries. There is a great deal of collegiate information in this book, along with the murder of a faculty member.. Mr. Campion and his aide, Mr. Lugg, solve the murder while wending their way through 1969(?) university politics, including the use of computers. It provides an interesting juxtaposition between 1929 English university life and 1969's.

Book six in the Albert Campion mysteries from Mike Ripley and an intriguing murder mystery for Campion in the world of academia. This is an aged Campion in a modern world and it works well - it's good to see that Campion, despite advanced years, is very much of the same mindset. A swiftly moving and hugely entertaining plot, well written and wryly witty with credible characters. Highly recommended.

‘Just visiting, are you?’

In 1970, Albert Campion is appointed by the Bishop of St. Edmondsbury as the Visitor to the new University of Suffolk Coastal. He’s been here before: a house called Black Dudley where a murder was committed in 1920, is now part of the University.

Mr Campion isn’t exactly sure what a Visitor is required to do, but he enjoys walking around the campus and meeting some of those who study and work there.

‘Perhaps, he ruminated, they thought he was a distinguished visiting professor rather than an undistinguished
Visitor just visiting.’

But Visitor becomes investigator after a faculty member is found stabbed to death on the university grounds. Professor Pascual Perez-Catalan was researching ways to predict the presence of valuable minerals and metals in the earth. He’s made himself unpopular with his colleagues by using most of the university’s computing power for his work, and he’s known as a ladies man. Who killed him, and why?

The Bishop wants Mr Campion to keep him informed, the police would prefer him to keep out of their way, but how can Mr Campion resist investigating? And the more he investigates, the more he discovers. The university is a hotbed of jealousy and resentment. As Mr Campion negotiates his way through the internal politics, he will also discover blackmail and betrayal, as well as a handful or two of red herrings. There’s a phantom trumpeter as well, who disturbs the sleep of many.

What a delightful combination of humour and mystery. I’ve not read any of Mr Ripley’s earlier Albert Campion books, nor have I read Margery Allingham’s originals. But now that I’ve discovered Mr Campion, I will search out those books.

Note: My thanks to NetGalley and Severn House for providing me with a free electronic copy of this book for review purposes.

Jennifer Cameron-Smith

Mr. Campion's Visit returns Albert Campion to the Black Dudley, the scene of his first (recorded) mystery 40 years later, though now the site is home to a modern university. Campion is appointed as the university's Visitor, he's not entirely sure what his duties are. Nonetheless so long after his arrival (wherein he encounters students, academics and other colorful characters) a University professor is found dead, and like his first adventure, Campion is called to investigate. While there are numerous references to Campion's advancing age (just past his 70th year) he remains eternally youthful in his demeanor, ferreting out clues in his own disarming way.

The overall narrative structure flows well, with intermittent flashbacks to years prior to provide context to the present proceedings. Ripley has a fine way of capturing Campion's spirit, especially with his interactions with his trusty sidekick Lugg.

Highly recommended, and I look forward to the next adventure.

Fans of classic British murder mysteries with a humorous touch will greatly enjoy this latest addition to the Albert Campion canon by Mike Ripley.

Mr Campion’s Visit is the sixth book in Mike Ripley's marvellous continuance of the Albert Campion novels by Margery Allingham. Set in 1970 it finds Campion, having recovered from the events of his recent seventieth birthday party (Mr Campion’s War), visiting the brand-new University of Suffolk Coastal in his official role of the ‘Visitor’ to the University. It is a vague role, but one which Campion is enjoying, as he wanders the University observing the staff and the students. The University encompasses the former estate of Black Dudley, where Campion had attended a weekend house party towards the end of the 1920s and helped solved a murder. His involvement in the long ago “trouble with those gangsters and the dagger ritual that went wrong”, has given him some notoriety, which comes in handy when a new murder occurs on the University grounds.

As the reluctant eyes and ears of the Bishop responsible for the establishment of the University, Campion finds himself drawn into the murder investigation, much to the annoyance of the police. The murder victim was a controversial figure on the campus and Campion has to work his way through a maze of motives including internal university rivalries, jealous lovers, revolutionary politics and the possible involvement of the CIA. There is also a phantom trumpeter who is constantly disturbing Campion’s sleep.

It is a fun read and a well plotted murder mystery, with a good selection of possible suspects. It takes a little while for the murder to occur, but Ripley keeps the reader well entertained during the early parts of the book with Campion’s wry comments on university life and amusing flashbacks to the planning meetings on the establishment of the university.

Once the murder occurs, Ripley unfolds the clues and red herrings with aplomb and his charming narrative style and dollops of good humour keeps the reader happily engaged till the well staged unveiling of the killer. The historical period is also well captured and the characters are simply, but effectively sketched.

In all, this is a very entertaining read, one of my favourites so far this year, and is highly recommended.

See my full review at murdermayhemandlongdogs.com

3 stars

This is an adequate attempt to recreate the fame of Margery Allingham's Albert Campion character. It is certainly an interesting premise on which to base a book. However, there was far too much detail about the relatively uninteresting people who made up the cast, so to speak, of this little novel.

I found the Campion character to be entertaining, as was his sidekick Lugg. The story really picked up some life at Lugg's appearance. I liked the odd words the author would throw into Campion's speech so that I had to run to my dictionary to relieve my confusion.

I enjoyed some of Mr. Ripley's earlier books more than this one. It just seemed too bogged down in minutiae and, as I mentioned before, totally uninteresting suspects. Don't give up on Mr. Campion just yet, Mr. Ripley, just make the future books focus more on Campion and his behavior/ruminations than taking the road into too much of the superfluous details of Campion's surroundings.

I want to thank NetGalley and Severn House for forwarding to me a copy of this good book for me to read, enjoy and review.

I have been a rabid fan of Mr. Campion for years. Marjorie Allingham's Albert Campion books were among the first "classic British mysteries" I read and I gobbled them up faster than a bag of chips. I applaud Mr. Ripley for keeping Mr. Campion alive, and I really enjoyed his recent MR. CAMPION'S WAR. But, this title doesn't do either the character or the series justice.

Academic settings are usually very appealing to me in a classic murder mystery, but Mr. Ripley totally allowed the reader to become bogged down by campus geography, architecture, politics and personalities. All of this over-shadowed Mr. Campion himself and I almost set this book aside. The story plodded along until Mr. Lugg appeared (FINALLY !) and the story came to life a bit.

It is a challenge to place an historic figure (even a fictional character) in a contemporary book and this construct just didn't work in this novel. I fully understand what Mr. Ripley is attempting to do, but if he wants to retain Mr. Campion's loyal fan base, I think he should travel back to Mr. Campion's golden years and let us enjoy him in his prime, with all the fun of the period setting.

NegGalley provided me with a complimentary copy of this book in exchange for a candid review.