Hide My Eyes

Rating:
Summary: Now You See Him...
Review: "Hide My Eyes" (also published as "Tether's End") is one of Margery Allingham's more atypical works. Rather than take their normal place as main characters, Albert Campion and Charlie Luke appear only occasionally. They serve to provide vital context and to move the plot along, but they do not take part in direct action until the book is almost over.

The tale is about a seemingly unconnected series of killings which Luke is convinced are related somehow. First, a bus with a strange old couple in it is used to transport a victim from a crime scene and then vanishes. Then another old couple sets out for South Africa and disappear. Some Jewelry from an unsolved murder turns up unexpectedly. All of these events tie into Luke's old patrol, Goff's Square, and Garden Green

While Campion and Luke try to fit the pieces together, the narrator moves on, shifting from the murderer's point of view to that of several important and delightful characters. Young Annabel Tassie has come to London at the invitation of her Aunt Polly. Polly runs a museum of peculiarities originally collected by her late husband. Having never met Aunt Polly, Annabel calls on Richard Waterfield, an old friend to keep an eye out for her. Richard, who is starting out his professional life in the big city, has not seen Annabel since he failed to marry her sister, and is greatly affected by the changes in his old chum. I believe it takes him about 5 seconds to fall totally under her spell.

It is Richard and Annabel who are the true main characters. Their separate adventures, Annabel with Aunt Polly, and Richard with the murderer that Luke and Campion are hunting, provide the main backdrop for the tense and chilling story of a killer who is gradually spinning out of control. Their paths weave through restaurants, clubs, barbershops, and city dumps until at last they come together in the small museum across from Garden Green.

This is an intricate and thrilling tale, a disturbing look into the mind of a charming sociopath, and an intriguing study of London life at the end of the 1950's. As she did in "Tiger in the Smoke," Margery Allingham turns from comfortable writing habits to show a rare expertise with psychological fiction. I am quite confident that the Allingham fan will find it irresistible.

Rating:
Summary: Now You See Him...
Review: "Hide My Eyes" (also published as "Tether's End") is one of Margery Allingham's more atypical works. Rather than take their normal place as main characters, Albert Campion and Charlie Luke appear only occasionally. They serve to provide vital context and to move the plot along, but they do not take part in direct action until the book is almost over.

The tale is about a seemingly unconnected series of killings which Luke is convinced are related somehow. First, a bus with a strange old couple in it is used to transport a victim from a crime scene and then vanishes. Then another old couple sets out for South Africa and disappear. Some Jewelry from an unsolved murder turns up unexpectedly. All of these events tie into Luke's old patrol, Goff's Square, and Garden Green

While Campion and Luke try to fit the pieces together, the narrator moves on, shifting from the murderer's point of view to that of several important and delightful characters. Young Annabel Tassie has come to London at the invitation of her Aunt Polly. Polly runs a museum of peculiarities originally collected by her late husband. Having never met Aunt Polly, Annabel calls on Richard Waterfield, an old friend to keep an eye out for her. Richard, who is starting out his professional life in the big city, has not seen Annabel since he failed to marry her sister, and is greatly affected by the changes in his old chum. I believe it takes him about 5 seconds to fall totally under her spell.

It is Richard and Annabel who are the true main characters. Their separate adventures, Annabel with Aunt Polly, and Richard with the murderer that Luke and Campion are hunting, provide the main backdrop for the tense and chilling story of a killer who is gradually spinning out of control. Their paths weave through restaurants, clubs, barbershops, and city dumps until at last they come together in the small museum across from Garden Green.

This is an intricate and thrilling tale, a disturbing look into the mind of a charming sociopath, and an intriguing study of London life at the end of the 1950's. As she did in "Tiger in the Smoke," Margery Allingham turns from comfortable writing habits to show a rare expertise with psychological fiction. I am quite confident that the Allingham fan will find it irresistible.

Rating:
Summary: Ahead of its time
Review: Margery Allingham was an uneven writer but she hit a purple match in the early 50s, with the brilliant "Tiger in the Smoke" and this subsequent, similarly-themed novel. The calculating killer, who murders not out of madness or hate or bloodlust, but for simple convenience, is a terrifying creation and the opening of the story, as he plots his latest crime, is extraordinarily gripping - there is a real smell of evil as he methodically prepares to take a human life.

The atmosphere of postwar London is beautifully captured and the conclusion tremendously suspenseful. In many ways, Allingham was ahead of her time - she was a precursor to the Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine school of psychological suspense.

Rating:
Summary: Ahead of its time
Review: Margery Allingham was an uneven writer but she hit a purple match in the early 50s, with the brilliant "Tiger in the Smoke" and this subsequent, similarly-themed novel. The calculating killer, who murders not out of madness or hate or bloodlust, but for simple convenience, is a terrifying creation and the opening of the story, as he plots his latest crime, is extraordinarily gripping - there is a real smell of evil as he methodically prepares to take a human life.

The atmosphere of postwar London is beautifully captured and the conclusion tremendously suspenseful. In many ways, Allingham was ahead of her time - she was a precursor to the Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine school of psychological suspense.