This is a mystery on the lines of Christie's Tommy and Tuppence stories - part thriller, part adventure, part espionage, which its overblown international criminal organisations, guns, and and secret passages. A slightly pompous settled in his ways young pathologist finds himself caught up in first murder and then the schemes of overblown criminals during a visit to the country mansion. Very English old-chaps and threatening foreigners, with women mostly there to be protected and adored.This is the first of the Campion stories and Campion is a wonderful detective - intelligent, competent, observant, and joyfully pretending to be the most enormous twit in the universe. The guise of the fool allows him a great deal of freedom to carry out his tasks.I suspect that this book was intended to be a stand-alone, with Campion part of the drama but not an on-going main detective character. Later books are rather more focused on Campion-the-detective (and fortunately eventually move away from the international criminal organisations) and he is definitely a character that makes you want to read on.
