Dancers in Mourning

An Albert Campion Mystery

By: Margery Allingham

Narrated by: David Thorpe

Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins

Publisher's Summary

Jimmy Sutane is London's favorite song-and-dance man, headlining at the Argosy Theatre, and beloved by all. Or almost all - someone has taken to playing increasingly nasty pranks. Albert Campion offers to poke around, but what he finds chez Sutane nearly overwhelms him. The far-from traditional household features a clutch of explosive egos, including a brooding 'genius musician,' and a melodramatic young actress who seems to delight in drawing others into her web of carefully groomed tragedy. Someone here is aiming to hang up Sutane's tap shoes on a permanent basis, and if Campion is to keep Jimmy dancing, he'll have to come up with some pretty fancy footwork of his own.

Margery Allingham was born in London in 1904. Her first novel was published when she was seventeen. In 1929 she published The Crime at Black Dudley and introduced the character who was to become the hallmark of her writing - Albert Campion.

©2013 Margery Allingham (P)2013 Audible Ltd

Critic Reviews

"Miss Allingham's strength resides in the power of her characterizations, in her striking talent for painting vivid social backgrounds, and in her skillful use of language" ( Guardian)

Spectacular reading

Any additional comments?

I love the Campion series and the plot is satisfyingly full of twists. Good story but, most especially, the narrator is truly wonderful! David Thorpe captures all the different characters well with a really impressive repertoire of different voices for each. His delivery adds a great deal of well-placed comedic touches to the story. I am definitely looking for more books narrated by Mr. Thorpe.

Okay. There must be a reason.

I was so very distracted by the narrator putting an A at the end of the word coupe. I checked Webster, which gives the pronunciation I expected. So why wasn't it caught by the editor? It really ruined it for me.

Amazing!!!

I love all of the Campion mysteries, but this one was just stupendous!!! Even with Campion expressing the building tension, the tension did grow! It wasn't till the last that I suspected. So much fog in the way to see the end.

Great yarn!

Campion Revealed

Unlike other Campion stories, the reader gets to see a new side of Campion. We get a glimpse into his heart and his struggle with a personal conflict. It adds a new dimension to his character, who usually gets by with a joke to cover his feelings. The story is peppered with intriguing secondary characters and plot twists abound. I gave the story itself only 4 stars because I don't think the motive given for the killers action was worthy of some of his/her actions. A great listen, though I do find David Thorpe's interpretation of Campion's voice a bit over the top.

The book cover makes no sense. No one in the story was a ballet dance. Just a pet peeve of mine.

Character boring and hard to discern

Who is Albert Campion? Perhaps I should have started with book 1, but books 9 and 12 are the ones that are free included with membership, so those were my initiation into this series. I must say that after listening to both books, I have no idea who the main character is, what his personality is like, or what his motivations are for detecting. I can't even tell if he is particularly good at his job! He doesn't have any strong characteristics.

The narrator, David Thorpe, isn't bad exactly; he does a number of good voices and accents for other characters. However, the voice he uses for Albert Campion makes the detective seem like a silly idiot -- it is high, frivolous and inappropriately emotive in parts.

I'm not going to be spending any money or credits on other books in this series.

I especially liked this one

The story had some just wonderful Lugg, plus surprises. The performance was great, the accents and the character interpretations, the dialogues were lovely.

A Smash Hit!

I'd read this book years ago and enjoyed it. I enjoyed it more listening to David Thorpe's performance. He made each character come to life, making the story vivid and exciting. Here we have Campion involved in a case he really doesn't want to solve, mainly because he's fallen in love with the wife of one of the suspects.

Prefer Francis Matthews as a narrator,.

David Thorpe affects accents which detract from, rather than enhance, the story.
The Campion series is one which I enjoy and as this particular narrator is most prevalent it seems that I will just have to put up with him.

Much more than a crime novel

Would you listen to Dancers in Mourning again? Why?

Yes because it is so much more than a crime novel. There is an emotional depth to it that I find very moving and David Thorpe's reading does that full justice. It is quite dark in tone with a lot of people who are bruised by life in some way or another.

Who was your favorite character and why?

They are all vividly drawn. On a slightly shallow note, I am I pleased that Amanda Fitton is entirely absent as I find her presence detracts in other novels.

Have you listened to any of David Thorpe’s other performances? How does this one compare?

No but I would certainly listen to others. I hesitated a long time before buying this because I have a much cherished reading of this book by Francis Matthews and I was concerned that this reading would somehow disappoint me. I needn't have worried. David Thorpe has all the attributes I want in a reader, a beautiful voice and the ability to convey character through different voices as well as a performance to suit the story. There were times when I genuinely forgot this was just one actor reading as the voices were all so different.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

I find the whole set up of this particular story moving but the ending particularly so. No matter how many times I listen to it it always moves me (almost) to tears. The reason for this lies in the writing and the creation of characters I really care about. All of this could be lost in performance but David Thorpe conveyed the emotional depth so well. Even the minor characters are vividly portrayed ranging from the comic to the tragic and it is a very satisfying performance which does justice to a novel with more depth than a straightforward whodunnit.

This is the only Campion novel I like because this is a grown up Campion who is not playing the fool as he often seems to be in other novels. He was in emotional turmoil throughout the novel and I truly feel his dilemma

A Margery Allingham favourite

Beautiful narration - great story - in my opinion the ending was a little sudden- but this did match the time of the book - so just me wanting it to go a little longer !
Uncle William makes a reappearance which was lovely and there was not quite as much of the wonderful Lug as I would have liked! Basically I just wanted more ! Excellent book all round.

A Cracking Mystery

Where does Dancers in Mourning rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This is a book that deserves to be near the top of the tree in the Margery Allingham canon.

Any additional comments?

This book follows similar lines to the other Albert Campion books. Very well crafted with good interaction between the numerous character especially Lugg and Campion. I thought it was a little bit slow in starting but once the bodies started appearing it took off. If you ever get a paper version of this book, whatever you do don't loose the last page, as it's only in the last paragraph you find out "who done it". I was wrong by the way. Excellent book.

Dreadful narration

I could not get beyond chapter 2 as the narrator’s rendering of Campion was ridiculous. He sounded like a squeaky idiot schoolboy! Do not waste a credit or only listen to the books read by a different narrator.

a very good read

book to read. it take's time to work out who killer is, and your wrong.

campion champion

loved it all campion series is so good .brilliantly penned. golden age authors are great

A fine dance for audience

Good book. Lots of avenues to explore and plenty of red herrings to fall for.

A gripping story

I found myself listening to this story at every opportunity. It traveled along fairly slowly in the middle of the story. I stuck with it as somehow kept me interested. Twists and turns later the final is revealed.
I much prefer Frances Matthews narration as this Campion sounds odd, but I did grow used to it. Definitely listen to more from Margery Allingham.

Dancers in Mourning

This is a very tricky mystery it you believing you've got it then you have to change your mind. Read brilliantly again by David Thorpe.