Traitor's Purse by Margery Allingham!

TRAITOR’S PURSE (1940) by Margery Allingham is a mystery thriller classic that masterfully combines psychological tension with a high-stakes plot. Suffering from amnesia, amateur sleuth Albert Campion races to stop a wartime national security threat.

The novel’s unique premise and tightly woven narrative create a sense of urgency and intrigue. Known for its psychological depth, it showcases Allingham’s skill at blending espionage with a classic whodunit. Allingham’s exploration of identity, loyalty, and duty cements the book’s status as a timeless classic in the genre. 

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Amnesia as a Literary Trope in Traitor’s Purse by Margery Allingham

What has happened to the amnesiac? Why is he in a county hospital? Has he killed a police officer? Will he be hanged? Why did he have a lot of money on him when he was found? “There was danger behind him and something tremendously important ahead” (1).

“Everyone was turning to himself for assurance. He dared not reveal the dreadful emptiness of his mind. Somehow he must struggle on, blind and halfwitted though he was. There was to be no outside help. He was quite alone” (17).

Amnesia is a commonly used storytelling plot device in thrillers and romances. Amnesia offers a fresh perspective: characters can re-evaluate their actions and motivations. Amnesia creates conflict, forcing characters to re-evaluate their lives and relationships. Amnesia creates suspense and mystery as the character tries to piece together their past. The amnesiac often regains memories after being hit on the head.

In Traitor’s Purse by Margery Allingham, Campion is knocked unconscious at the police station. When he wakes, he recalls the events before his arrival at the hospital. 

Other Examples: The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins: Rachel suffers from amnesia related to alcohol consumption and wakes up with no memory of what happened the night before. In the Woods by Tana French, Robert Ludlum’s Bourne Identity, The English Patient, The Time Traveler’s Wife, Memento (Christopher Nolan), Wolverine (Marvel), Ursula Le Guin’s City of Illusions, Severance

Peter Wimsey (Dorothy Sayers) vs. Albert Campion (Margery Allingham)

Lord Peter WimseyAlbert CampionWoos mystery novelist Harriet Vane.Meets aircraft engineer Amanda Fitton.Spent time overseas on secret government missions.Spent the war years overseas on a mission so secret that he never discovered what it was.Loyal butler (and occasional Watson) Bunter, a stickler for traditional, propriety, and detail.Friend of reformed burglar Lugg, who “in spite of magnificent qualities, has elements of the Oaf about him.”Second son of the Duke of Denver. Inherited wealth (as the second son) has made him independent and free. Collector of literature, music, wine, and men’s fashion.“Educated at Rugby and St. Ignatius College, Cambridge. Embarked on adventurous career 1924. Name known to be a pseudonym. Clubs: Puffin’s, The Junior Greys. Hobbies: odd.”

Transcript

Sarah Harrison: 0:24

Welcome to Tea, Tonic, and Toxin, a book club and podcast for anyone who wants to explore the best mysteries and thrillers ever written. I'm your host, Sarah Harrison.

Carolyn Daughters: 0:35

And I'm your host, Carolyn Daughters. Pour yourself a cup of tea, a gin and tonic, but not a toxin, and join us on a journey through 19th and 20th century mysteries and thrillers, every one of them a game changer. Sarah, we're going to talk about Albert Campion mysteries today.

Sarah Harrison: 0:57

But before we talk about this amazing book, we have an amazing sponsor.

Carolyn Daughters: 1:02

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Sarah Harrison: 1:37

Carolyn, it's been a journey to record this afternoon, it has taken a bit of time, but I am really excited to talk about this book.

Carolyn Daughters: 1:46

I'm glad that we were finally getting to it, because for a while, there we were like, I don't know if this is happening.

Sarah Harrison: 1:52

Listeners are like, What do you mean? You wish you knew. Listeners, yes, this book is, is awesome. We're going to talk about Margery Allingham's Traitor's Purse. But before we do, we have a special shout out, do we not?

Carolyn Daughters: 2:10

We have a shout out to a special listener. Our listener of this episode is Deirdre Bugbee from Vero Beach, Florida.

Sarah Harrison: 2:21

Was she listening to us on the beach, do you think?

Carolyn Daughters: 2:25

Near the beach, not on the beach, but in proximity to the beach.

Sarah Harrison: 2:31

That's fabulous. That was our David Morrell episode. David was a delightful guest.

Carolyn Daughters: 2:37

David Morrell, who wrote First Blood, which, of course, is the book upon which Rambo is based. And we had two episodes with David Morrell. If you have not caught those, obviously finish this episode first, because cutting this episode short would be crazy.

Sarah Harrison: 2:53

I mean, don't jump all over the place.

Carolyn Daughters: 2:55

Finish this and just go back. David Morrell was an amazing, amazing guest, and super like giving of his time. He wanted to talk with us about Rogue Male by Geoffrey Household and also First Blood.

Sarah Harrison: 3:13

Deirdre, you are an amazing listener. Thank you so much, and I hope you enjoy your beautiful sticker that's coming your way.

Carolyn Daughters: 3:21

Yes, we appreciate you. Even if you weren't listening on the beach and were listening in your home, which is what I suspect.

Sarah Harrison: 3:29

Or your car. That's where I listen to

Carolyn Daughters: 3:31

I'm pretty sure this one was in the home. Awesome. And also I take a lot of long walks. I like to walk four or five miles at a shot. And I usually load up our podcasts and other podcasts that I love. And it's just a really good time to zone out a little bit, listen, walk, get some air and sun. If you haven't tried that out, I suggest you consider it for the spring. It's really changed a lot about the way I organize my day.

Sarah Harrison: 4:06

It's always a good time for Tea, Tonic and Toxin, folks.

Carolyn Daughters: 4:12

Really, any hour of the day. You're walking, it's midnight, it's you're waking up, you're in the car, it's all good. Are you up at 5 a.m. every day?

Sarah Harrison: 4:19

I usually release an episode at like, 5 a.m. I was editing this episode on Albert Campion mysteries in the early hours. In case you're like me, and you get up and you're looking for a podcast on the way to work. It's there waiting for you like a little treat. That is actually when I get up. I work in early shift at work right now.

Carolyn Daughters: 4:38

Five is early.

Sarah Harrison: 4:40

Five as it is, I'm a tired person a lot.

Carolyn Daughters: 4:43

So if you're waking up at five, how much sleep are you getting?

Sarah Harrison: 4:50

Not enough. A typical day is six and a half hours. I function best with seven and a half to eight and a half.

Carolyn Daughters: 4:58

I've I found that I'm really best from seven to eight and a half hours. Somewhere in there.

Sarah Harrison: 5:03

I think we might talk a little bit about sleep habits during this discussion. Really, it does play into our book. Sleep habits.

Carolyn Daughters: 5:13

Oh, she's being cryptic. I love cryptic.

Sarah Harrison: 5:17

Let me introduce the book for you. Celebrated amateur detective Albert Campion... Is he an amateur? I thought he was a professional in this book.

Carolyn Daughters: 5:29

Pretty sure he's an amateur.

Sarah Harrison: 5:31

Because he got so much respect.

Carolyn Daughters: 5:33

He does have a lot of respect.

Sarah Harrison: 5:34

But I'm like, Okay, we're in this place of puzzle while we read the book, which we'll talk about. Albert Campion awakens in a hospital. He's accused of attacking a police officer and suffering from acute amnesia. All he can remember is that he was on a mission of vital importance to His Majesty's government before his accident. That's why I didn't think he was an amateur, because he worked for the government or something.

Carolyn Daughters: 5:57

I think he sort of works for the government. The way Peter Wimsey sort of works for the government, just loosely.

Sarah Harrison: 6:04

Albert Campion is on the run from the police and unable to recognize even his faithful servant or his beloved fiance. Campion struggles desperately to put the pieces together while World War II rages and the very fate of England is at stake. Traitors Purse by Margery Allingham was published in 1940. The Guardian called it a wartime masterpiece. The New Republic called it uncommonly exciting stuff, replete with Marger Allingham's skill in story building and the plausible characters that make her as much a fine novelist as a mystery writer. Agatha Christie wrote that Margery Allingham stands out like a shining light, and she has another quality not usually associated with crime stories, elegance. In the introduction to the 2024 edition, author A.S. Byatt writes, "If I had a vote for the single best detective story, this would be it." Margery Allingham is preeminent among the writers who brought the detective story to maturity in It's Traitors Purse. the decades between the two World Wars. She was born in London in 1904, and her first novel was published when she was 17. Her first detective story, The White Cottage Mystery, followed in 1928. Her next book, The Crime at Black Dudley, introduced the iconic character, Albert Campion. She wrote several Albert Campion mysteries. Margery Allingham died in 1966. Okay, tell me why you picked this one. Initially, as I was reading it, I thought, This must be the first book Margery Allingham ever wrote for Alfred Campion. And then I was like, Oh no, it's not at all. So tell me why this was the choice.

Carolyn Daughters: 8:01

It was the choice in large part because of the wartime theme and the amnesia. Amnesia is going to become a very prevalent theme in a lot of mysteries and thrillers going forward. I made a just a cursory list here. The list could go on, but The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins, which has been a big book of late, In the Woods by Tana French, The Borne Identity, which I read when I was about 17-18, years old, and loved, loved, loved. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje, Ursula Le Guin, City of Illusions, The Time Traveler's Wife. These are all books that I've read and loved. There are also a couple shows Memento or Memento movie. That's Christopher Nolan with Guy Pierce. I've seen that movie, and I'm going to watch it again. I've already made a note. Watch this again. I've seen it three times, but it's been ages.

Sarah Harrison: 9:06

I love them.

Carolyn Daughters: 9:06

What a movie that rewards rewatching.

Sarah Harrison: 9:10

It's so good, but I don't know that I actually could. I don't know if I can watch that again.

Carolyn Daughters: 9:14

I've seen it three times. It's Christopher Nolan. It's so good, difficult that way. But wow, Guy Pierce knocks it out of the park. And then my current obsession, television wise, is Severance.

Sarah Harrison: 9:29

I've been seeing memes about Severance lately. The memes are funny. So curious.

Carolyn Daughters: 9:36

It's funny. It's moving, it breaks your brain. Though amnesia is not actually what's happening, because their identities are severed. For all intents and purposes, it's where one half of your identity doesn't remember the other half of the identity.

Sarah Harrison: 9:56

That sounds cool.

Carolyn Daughters: 9:57

And this is just my off the cuff list. If I had actually put any real time in it, or if I had researched it, I would have come up with a massive, massive list. And so I thought the amnesia trope, and I also thought the wartime setting, the combination, suggested that this was the book for us. The challenge here is we didn't do a second Margery Allingham book. So if I can go back in time, I might add The Crime at the Black Dudley, so that we could see the evolution of Albert Campion throughout the Albert Campion mysteries. Because in Traitor's Purse, we're seeing a man made anew because he doesn't really remember who he was.

Sarah Harrison: 10:45

The first thing I definitely did think of The Bourne Identity, and so much so that I was like, looking for links like, was this the story that inspired the foreign identity? And I couldn't find nothing like no conversation on that front. Although to me, it felt so similar, like, even to the point where, okay, you're having these initial reactions. They're knee jerk reactions, but they're so precise that you're like, oh my goodness, am I a criminal? Yes, I think the same thought came up in The Bourne Identity, where he immediately in a reactionary way could fight his way out of any situation or knew how to do anything. And he's like, how do I have this skill set? You see something similar in the Albert Campion mysteries. And Campion gets surprised at himself, and I'm like, Wow, I can really climb like a cat.

Carolyn Daughters: 11:33

I know how to handle a gun. I can climb like a cat.

Sarah Harrison: 11:36

I gratuitously picked up this hairpin that saved the day.

Carolyn Daughters: 11:42

He knows things, and he doesn't know how he how he knows them. Tea tonic and toxin is this book club and podcast is focused on the history of mystery. So we will eventually get to the Bourne Identity. If I had to guess, it will be in the year 2042.

Sarah Harrison: 11:58

Did that one win an Edgar Award?

Carolyn Daughters: 12:00

No. But we're gonna add some books like The Bourne Identity.

Sarah Harrison: 12:05

One day. Stick with us, folks.

Carolyn Daughters: 12:14

Which is all another way of saying it's going to be a while before we get into more I say it's not even contemporary anymore, but more contemporary literature. It could be soon. I mean, for goodness sake, it could be 2032. I don't know. But no, it did not win an Edgar Award. But I have, I have sprinkled into our Edgar Award winning list books that just it would be crazy for us to not.

Sarah Harrison: 12:51

Apparently, Carolyn is really ahead on the list. I need to take a look. She was 20 years ahead on the list.

Carolyn Daughters: 12:58

No, no, no. I do have sprinkled into our shared spreadsheet.

Sarah Harrison: 13:04

I will look in it. I mostly just look at the current year and make sure I got all my books ordered in time. That's or like, before we release the next year, we'll go through and back and forth a little bit.

Carolyn Daughters: 13:16

The more you block out the fact that it could be 2042. We're currently in the 1940s and part this is part of the challenge, right? Is that Sarah, you and I, we really like lingering. And we're like, this is a really fun time period, so we don't want to rush through it, and then suddenly we're in 1962. And we missed all these great books.

Sarah Harrison: 13:44

It would be very interesting, right? Because I'm reading this and thinking, Oh, this must be her first book, and I'm seeing his character unfold. And one of the things I love about the book is the way he's critiquing his former character from the earlier Albert Campion mysteries. I think included in the discussion notes, one of the things he said, like, wow, I must have taken advantage of her, or, like, taken her for granted for years. And I just wonder, like, was that flaw really written into his character in the previous books? Like, did he go in there and just totally take Amanda for granted for years, and then he does have that realization in this book.

Carolyn Daughters: 14:24

So my understanding is, yes, that's cool.

Sarah Harrison: 14:27

Did she plan that? Or did she just write a flawed character?

Carolyn Daughters: 14:34

These are great questions. So, okay, there's this whole building up of the character. So Albert Campion supposedly was invented as a parody of Peter Wimsey.

Sarah Harrison: 14:55

I saw that note, and it was like as a parody, though I could see as a similarity, but I'm not sure I would have read that he was really quite silly to start.

Carolyn Daughters: 15:08

He's described in in the first Albert Campion novel, The Crime at Black Dudley. He's described as a fresh-faced young man with the tow-colored hair and the foolish pale blue eyes behind tortoise shell rimmed spectacles. He's called quite inoffensive, just a silly ass. And I believe, in several of the books, he's described in this loose, not fully respectful way. So I think, yes, a parody of Wimsey.

Sarah Harrison: 15:40

He must have become something else, though, like when you, you're reading this book, and you're constantly confronted with, like, the massive amounts of respect that he garners in every room, like in the way Amanda really, who seems like a great character, and I quite enjoyed her, but she just believes he can accomplish anything/ Takes him at face value, and he has all these loyal friends and employees, and all of the police and all of the detectives are like, You're the man. You're the only man that can do it, and you get you can have whatever you need. And also, so I feel like if you were just a ridiculous person.

Carolyn Daughters: 16:23

I actually created, and you can find this on our website. On our we have a page for every book that we do. So we've done a lot of books. I don't know how many books?

Sarah Harrison: 16:37

More than 36 more.

Carolyn Daughters: 16:40

Yes, it could be 100 it could be 37 more than 56, sure. Honestly, we have a page for every book we've ever done.

Sarah Harrison: 16:50

If you didn't know that, you should go look at it.

Carolyn Daughters: 16:54

We have a lot of content on our website.

Sarah Harrison: 16:57

And ways to converse about all the books.

Carolyn Daughters: 16:59

And so I created this little chart comparing Lord Peter Wimsey and Albert Campion in the Albert Campion mysteries. He has an aristocratic background. He lives under the pseudonym. We never learned his name.

Sarah Harrison: 17:17

I didn't realize there's a pseudonym in this book.

Carolyn Daughters: 17:19

Yes, his name is not Albert Campion. They both have these men servants who have, like, tons of character. See if Wimsey had Bunter, who we look We adored Bunter. Bunter is awesome. And Bunter kept Wimsey alive during the First World War Campion has Lugg, Magersfontein Lugg, which is, like, one of the greatest names of a character I've heard. And I don't even know how long it's amazing.

Sarah Harrison: 17:52

He's a lot different from bun term, but also a great character.

Carolyn Daughters: 17:56

He's an ex cat burglar. And Lord Peter Wimsey is second son of the Duke of Denver. He has inherited wealth that has made him independent. He collects literature, music, wine and men's fashion, and he's also an amateur detective. Albert Campion, educated at rugby and st Ignatius College, Cambridge. He embarked on an adventurous career in 1924 His name is known to be a pseudonym. His clubs are puffins, the junior grays, hobbies, odd, so as a parody of Wimsey, and then he evolves from this sort of stereotype of a character into a more well-rounded character, a sympathetic character, a character with depth and breadth, who feels things and who, when he experiences this amnesia, can actually call into question various characteristics of his former self, which I think is really interesting.

Sarah Harrison: 19:10

I loved that part of the book. I feel like that's like a moment that I would probably always want for myself. That's a moment that's maybe everyone could have. I don't know I had a concussion. It didn't work that way at all.

Carolyn Daughters: 19:30

Did you? You didn't forget who you are.

Sarah Harrison: 19:34

He seems to I knew who I was, and I knew the long-term, but I didn't have any short-term memory even to remember what I said five minutes ago. And this went on for quite some time. So how much time I don't I don't know. I know it was a while, I like, minutes or days, or I think it was at least a day, a day. As I recall, I passed out. I had the flu, got dehydrated, passed out, got a concussion, my mom, the first thing I remember is my mom drive me to the hospital. Apparently, my dad was out of the country at the time. I didn't remember I'm going, but I knew I had a dad, and I kept saying, where's Dad? Like, this is a serious thing. I've never been to a hospital before. Where is Dad? Why isn't he here? And I could see it was really upsetting my mom to be like, where's Dad? And she's like, I just told you he was in Russia or the Philippines. It might have been the Philippines or something like that country, like, oh, where's Dad? It was much it was much more, I think, the Memento type of thing, where I could remember the character and that remembers the past, but they, they can't remember the present so much that he'd like tattoos everything on him. So I would have had to tattoo on myself, like dad is out of the country, and refer to that before I asked again. I thought of that when I was reading Traitor's Purse, which is the only one of the Albert Campion mysteries I've read thus far.

Carolyn Daughters: 21:20

Write it down on a white board or something.

Sarah Harrison: 21:22

But it was just like, I couldn't remember. I knew who I was in the space of my life, but not specifically what was happening, like the last few weeks, present moment.

Carolyn Daughters: 21:37

I've had that if I've come out of surgery, but we're talking minutes, maybe an hour, but probably, to be honest, closer to minutes. Like, what did? What were you conscious of feeling as you could not grasp the various facts that were happening in front of you, or that had happened within recent hours, days, something like that, like, what? What were you like? How were you processing that in your head? Were you feeling panicked? Were you feeling just like, I'm just gonna keep asking these questions. Like, were you aware of the disconnect?

Sarah Harrison: 22:12

No, I was just like, constantly pushing a reset button because mom would answer my question. Then I have this minute of realization. I'm like, Oh, right. Like, look at the Oh, I did. I looked out the window and I saw my school, and I said something like, oh, that's carriage Hill, which was the name of the school in the last place I had lived. It wasn't actually the name of my school, my current day school, and so, of course, that upset. Mom was like, Oh my goodness. What has gone wrong with my daughter? But, um, but for me, like I don't I'm completely unaware. I'm thinking, I'm remembering stuff for saying things. And then I'm like, But where's Dad? Why doesn't he care enough to be here? What could he possibly be doing more important than this? Like when she told me I'd be like, Oh, okay. And then I drew it again, so I don't feel like it could even develop anxiety, because it was just reset, reset, reset, okay.

Carolyn Daughters: 23:15

And then eventually, obviously, the resetting stopped. And so did you have any awareness that the resetting had stopped, or was it so cyclical, the resetting that you didn't even have a memory of the resetting, and your mom had to tell you later, like you asked where your dad was 10 times.

Sarah Harrison: 23:34

I didn't remember the reset Okay, at all. I think eventually I just started to remember when I was being like, oh, Dad's advocate. Oh, that's right, he did leave. Oh, right, right. And I just stopped forgetting, so, which is totally, totally different. I wish I had had this enlightening experience like in the Albert Campion mysteries.

Carolyn Daughters: 23:52

Where you could reflect on, because so that this is why it's a trope, and it's really interesting. This is why authors use it. You get this fresh perspective. The characters can assess motivations and actions. Albert Campion, for example, is going to learn he's been engaged to this woman for eight years, and every bone in his body says this woman is a superstar, the most amazing woman. I love her. I adore her. I do anything for her. Why in the world would I not be married to this woman?

Sarah Harrison: 24:27

She dumps him right at the beginning of the book. She's like, Oh, by the way, I'm sure you don't mind. Let's call it off.

Carolyn Daughters: 24:34

There's an evoluation in the Albert Campion mysteries. In Traitor's Purse, it's eight years into their courtship and so it also it forces you to re evaluate your life and your relationships, and it adds suspense and mystery as they and it puts us in their story, very much like The Bourne Identity, where we know as little as Jason Bourne. We know, okay. We're like, okay, boat, water, gun, bad guys. What is happening is he a criminal? It like, Who is this guy? What is happening right now? And so it's really, it really puts you very closely in the shoes and the body and the mind of the protagonist, and I think, really interesting way, because a lot of narrators, of course, are keeping things from us. They're either third person narrators or unreliable first person narrators, sometimes a second person narrator which gets into a whole different, weird thing, but like we, they're often keeping stuff from us. But this narrator is, hey, this is, I'm putting it all out here. Like, this is, I don't even understand what's going on. Who are these people? Why do I know how to use a gun? You could see why. This is huge in suspense, thriller, mystery novels, it's there's so much potential here, and we're seeing that he used to be one sort of way. And maybe he's calling into question some of his maybe more flighty behaviors, some of his tendency to take for granted this engagement to this amazing woman. I mean, he doesn't. He has these flashes of memory. When he's at Lee Aubrey's house, which is at the Bridge Institute, he knows where he is. He gets his flash. He doesn't know what it means. He doesn't know why he's there. He doesn't but he gets this flash, and he's like, I know what this is. And he has the same thing happen with Amanda, who is the woman he loves, where he, at first doesn't know her, and then when he does, he has this flash. He's like, this is Amanda, who readers have seen throughout the Albert Campion mysteries. And though he can't remember all the details of their lives together or how they've spent the last eight years, he knows deep in his bones he loves her.

Sarah Harrison: 27:12

He has the emotional memory I would say, to be like, Oh, that's the person I need. That's the person I have a habit of looking for. That's the person who's going to get me through this. And then he also has the outside perspective of, I had no idea I was so completely reliant on her and how wonderful she is. It seemed without what seems to be, what is implied, like his his vanity, that he probably had his self confidence, maybe his sense of deserving it like it seems like, he felt like, well, of course, we're together in the same way that she felt like, of course, I'll marry you. And now he's like, the shoes a little bit on the other foot, and he's like, you're so smart, and I need you so much by the things you're saying, I think I've been a bit of a turd, like, what I'm hearing.

Carolyn Daughters: 28:12

And she reinforces that. I mean, she, I think, at one point, like, describes him as sensible and cold.

Sarah Harrison: 28:21

Fish like. When he hears like, how she perceives him and how he's come across is, like, highly disappointing.

Carolyn Daughters: 28:30

Because he's feeling like a clean slate at this stage of the Albert Campion mysteries, whether he wants to or not, he would very much like to reclaim his past identity and understand whatever the enormity of the situation is in front of him. He knows that there is some time critical event about to happen, and only he can save the day. And he knows that, but he just doesn't know what the event is. He wants to reclaim that identity. But by the same token, some of the stuff he's learning, he's just, oh my gosh. Is that who I am? Right?

Sarah Harrison: 29:03

Right? She's like, I know you won't mind to let I break it off. I've found someone else, and he's like, what? I wouldn't mind that. Who am I that I am like this? And he's actually, he'll call out her name just so she'll turn around and he can see her face, and she's like, total. She's like, what you are never this kind of person, like, who? How are you being this? Right at the moment, I'm breaking up with you.

Carolyn Daughters: 29:34

She's this touchstone that he's the thing keeping him. She's the thing keeping him sane and making him, grounding him in all of this confusion.

Sarah Harrison: 29:49

I don't know. I just think it's so wonderful, like you don't know what your layers of protection and like positioning and. And you don't know what your layers necessarily are, I think, until they're stripped away and you're like, Oh, goodness. Because once you when you have your layers, if he had his memory and she had come to be like, Oh, actually, I think I'm in love with Lee, he would have been like, Oh, of course.

Carolyn Daughters: 30:19

Good choice.

Sarah Harrison: 30:20

Instead of what he was, which was devastated.

Carolyn Daughters: 30:29

A lot of it feels really human to me in the sense that there are days where I wake up fresh and I've had a good night's sleep, and then some thought will flit into my head and I'll just wince, just like, oh, that the memory of that thing that I said or did, just flits in there. Of all the Albert Campion mysteries, Traitor's Purse made me think about this. Now, if I'm really lucky, it flips in around six when I wake up. If I'm unlucky, it it like slips in around 3 a.m., and I'm like, Oh, good. This is the witching hour, just it, he's having these revelations. And on a non amnesiac scale, I've had those sorts of realizations about self where I think, is that the person I am, did I really do that? Did I really say that? And you're almost out of body for even a short period of time where you're thinking like, Who is the person who did that? I know it was me, but was it me? And is it the me that I want to continue going forward. Like, do I want to be the sort of person who did, said, reacted in that way? Do I want to be that it's whether you want it or not, three in the morning or six, like, you can have that sort of flash of epiphany.

Sarah Harrison: 32:03

I assume all humans, we have the same basic affliction, but, man, I hate that. And maybe so I'm like, wishing to have this experience that Albert has. And also I'm saying I hate that when I see myself, I'm like, Why did I say that? That came off so stupid or that sound arrogant? That's not what you meant to say. And I think we all, I know we all, it's actually a trait I always go over with my teams. It's called the fundamental attribution error. And we all will tend to talk ourselves out of it, like, Oh, why did I say that? That was so stupid. Well, it doesn't really matter, and that's not really what I meant. They know what I mean. We figure it out and explain it to ourselves, but I don't know that we should, because maybe we just, maybe we have something we need to do something different. I thought about that in the context of the Albert Campion mysteries.

Carolyn Daughters: 33:09

Is it possible that we're giving ourselves grace, or is it that we're just basically running over the thing and saying, okay, just please quit. Like, just move on. Like, everybody got it everything, that's fine. You're overthinking it, or are we cutting ourselves some slack?

Sarah Harrison: 33:26

Well, so this is the Aarons. Is how it lays out. And you can probably imagine how I use it in, like, in work teams. But I think it's true all the time, all right, so if somebody not us, if someone else is out there and they are in a bad position. They really screw up. We attribute that to their character. They are lazy, they brought this on themselves. They are rude, they are spoiled, they're something and if things are going well for them, we attribute that to their circumstances. They got lucky. They came into money. They know the right people. They didn't really deserve for ourselves. We flip that. So when we do something stupid, it's the situation. We didn't get any breaks. I didn't have any time identify with my boyfriend, blah blah, blah, blah, blah. That's, there's all these reasons why, and when we're doing well and something's good, we attribute it to our character. Well, I worked really hard for that. I made the connections. I'm super smart. All those things. So that's the error in a nutshell. That's human behavior.

Carolyn Daughters: 34:54

For myself, I reverse that.

Sarah Harrison: 34:56

Do you you think you have a bad character? Are you questioning like Albert Campion does in the Albert Campion mysteries?

Carolyn Daughters: 35:00

No, no. No, I reverse the attribution error. If something good happens for me, I think it's because of luck. I tend to almost think it's because that's the way things fell out. And if something bad happens, I always do a very deep search for my accountability. I'm hyper accountable. It's possible that I caused global warming. Carolyn's turning that ship around. It's like, in case you're wondering, who's responsible for global warming? It's probably Carolyn Daughters.

Sarah Harrison: 35:35

Who's responsible for anything going wrong.

Carolyn Daughters: 35:39

I'm hyper accountable, in response to at various points in my life, absence of accountability, I'm in response, always hyper accountable. Whereas, if something good happens for me, I tend to not walk around with my head in the air going, look at you. You did it. I'm more like, Okay, I got that. I don't know how it happened, but it could go away tomorrow. So I tend to not follow that, though I do see how people can see the world in those two different ways for sure.

Sarah Harrison: 36:16

So, I mean, I would say for the most part, when we do something stupid, we're evaluating it to almost release it from our mind, right? We're not evaluating it or fixating on it to get rid of it or explain it or justify it or somehow come to terms with it. We're not always evaluating it for the accountability side or be like, do I need to do something deep to myself.

Carolyn Daughters: 36:42

I'm always asking that of myself. I'm always like, What could I have done differently? What tone could I have used differently? How could I have used words differently? Could I have engaged earlier, later, more often? What? How did I contribute to the way in which that situation became exacerbated to a point that this other thing happened. I'm always, always putting myself on trial for that.

Sarah Harrison: 37:06

Always. I mean, there's putting yourself on trial, and then there's problem solving too.

Carolyn Daughters: 37:11

Oh, I would like to solve a problem.

Sarah Harrison: 37:14

That's the goal really is. And I feel like I've only, I'm only occasionally successful as I'm going through stuff. I was going through a situation this morning, and I was like, this went sideways. Recover. How do I recover this? And it happened as, like, I think we need to have this conversation, and it needs to go like this. I don't know. Maybe I just need to toss, toss in the towel and go buy a farm. To like, get to the problem solving point, it's that stuff too. It was interesting to me, like I liked these two things going on in the book was suddenly his relationship was in danger that he needed the most, and the world of some sort was in danger about the number 15 in some way, and he was the only person. Of all the Albert Campion mysteries, this one is so interesting because of the introspection. I mean, he even was like, Why was I so secretive? It was trusted by him, and he's put himself in a situation to screw it all up.

Carolyn Daughters: 38:34

To the point that he only tells one person he's lost his memory.

Sarah Harrison: 38:40

I really liked that it was love. I love that it was love. And I could not figure out how I felt about his approach to Amanda.

Carolyn Daughters: 38:51

He was so paternalistic, and so I've got to keep her from any harm, and I can't even let her know. And he even says that about the world around him, no one can know that I'm the only guy who can save England, I'm the only guy, so I can't tell anyone that I don't remember what I'm doing, what, what battle I'm fighting, who I'm working for, I can't tell anybody anything, so I just keep charging on with amnesia.

Sarah Harrison: 39:32

I didn't exactly think it was paternalistic, so I kept reading like what is because I know myself, I would have been like, blurting at all, like, oh my goodness, but he took this different tack because of the romantic relationship and the fact that he was losing her. So I think if Lee Aubrey was. Into factor. He would have told her. It definitely got that sense, because he said several times he's like, if I told Amanda what was going on, she'd be at my side in a second. She would forget all about Aubrey and like, her loyalty to me and my needs. And he was like, I don't want to win her that way. I don't want, I don't want Aubrey to lose because I'm incompetent. I want to win like he wants, he wants her to calm in his strength and his weakness. It's always like, well, that really convoluted, but I definitely would have told her.

Carolyn Daughters: 40:39

I think also that's part of the way the mystery continues through the book is we don't have a lot of characters filling in the gaps for him. And the way we sustain that, and sustain the thriller elements, what is happening, what's going on with this guy, is we can't have everybody in the know. Now, Lugg comes across to me as this guy who has seen and done everything, so you could tell him anything, and he wouldn't bat an eye. He'd be like, Okay. So he's the natural ally, natural confidant for him for Campion in the Albert Campion mysteries. I love that he opened up to Lugg, and that Lugg immediately made him feel like he was at home.

Sarah Harrison: 41:35

That whole thing was really remarkable in this, of all the Albert Campion mysteries. He's in trouble. He punches this police officer, like, apparently breaks his jaw and then steals his car. Doesn't know how he gets there, but he drives straight to Lugg, like this meeting point is somehow one of the things embedded in his mind. He goes in there and he sees Lugg and he doesn't exactly seem to even know who he is, but he just rolls with it, and log explains it. So it's there was this automatic sense of knowing and needing love and being able to confide in him, and Lugg expresses really quite a bit of hurt over his relationship with Amanda. Is this jealousy of what was it? Was it that he recognized Amanda earlier? Or it was something? It's not that he confided in Amanda, but okay, he knew who she was more than he knew who Lugg was, or something, even though he had this automatic response and drive to get to Lugg. Lugg was still super hurt that he didn't Lugg was also hurt that he didn't rank the confidence of knowing what the mission was. There were several people that are like, Well, you didn't exactly tell me. I guess you didn't trust me with it.

Carolyn Daughters: 43:01

The mission is always from beginning to end, fairly vague. It's not, it's not built out with the 800 pages of a Bourne Identity, or I'm making up a page number. Maybe it's only 600 I don't know, but it those are big books, right? And so we don't get that level of detail here we So, I mean, part of me was clamoring for more detail, because I love, I love the detail. I'm like, tell me all about the campaign. Tell me what you know, how the enemy was going to try to infiltrate the forces, and how you were going to push back the enemy. And I want to know all of that. So some of that is necessarily vague for the story. Because I think my sense is that Allingham is not obsessed with the plot development of the of the mystery, as much as with the the characters and some of the other stuff. It was a sense that I got in this story. Tell me about minute 15. I wanted to know what we do, learn what it is at the end we had wrapped up for us, but along the way, Campion doesn't recall, and as a result, we readers don't know. And I think that that leaves us in this hazy, vague, the language tells us over and over, some emergency is happening, something really important. It's critical. It's going to happen any day now, any minute now.

Sarah Harrison: 44:45

Could be on the 15th day. It could be on the 15th minute. It could be at house number 15. That was cute that so many fifteens kept coming up to confuse us and champion What did you think about. Like what it actually turned out to be was so interesting. That's why I was wondering if this book is representative of the Albert Campion mysteries.

Carolyn Daughters: 45:11

This is what Allingham did. She creates this media blitz concept, right? So they're going to distribute fake money, throughout the country. And they're going to do it with some of the poorest of the population, who are not going to call this money into question, and instead, are going to take it, be grateful they had it, spend it, and the moment they do that, trouble is going to ensue throughout the country. And I thought this was a really interesting idea, in particular, because when she wrote this, she didn't know that something like this was actually happening. So to me, that's just like she had some insight into this real life operation called Operation Bernhard. Now she didn't know about this, but on the back end, Operation Bernhard was a real-life German plot. It's masterminded by Himmler's SS to flood wartime Britain with counterfeit currency. It didn't become public until after the war, and so this book is published in 1940. She didn't know about it, and yet she taps into this idea. This is where the Albert Campion mysteries get extra interesting. Where she got the idea, I don't know, but it's genius, really, because if you distribute a whole lot of money. I mean, I even think if we did a similar thing, even in the United States, say, everybody gets this $15 check. I don't know what it would be, I think a lot of people would cash that check.

Sarah Harrison: 47:00

Definitely. This is like, oh, sorry, here's your COVID, whatever city to. And I'm like, Well, I didn't, you know. My salary hasn't changed, but I'm definitely cashing that check right for the student. That's an interesting thing, because I thought when it came I was like, this is inflation. That's the big deal. Is in like, massive inflation.

Carolyn Daughters: 47:29

Or just devaluing the pound, and so that basically it's going to ruin Britain from the economy.

Sarah Harrison: 47:39

It was coinciding, if I understood it correctly, with the moment they were going to ask everyone to buy war bonds, and so it would have, it would have financially exploded the country. Although I have to admit to me that I don't know, like, financial plot tropes like that, I was just like, oh, it seemed less exciting until I read the same thing you did that that was an actual scheme. And I was like, oh, there was an actual there was an actual scheme. That's like a real war strategy that she didn't even know about. She just wrote it, so that, I guess I probably just don't have enough financial literacy to feel the threat as profoundly as it came across in the book.

Carolyn Daughters: 48:24

So you devalue the pound, and then inflation, of course, as you mentioned, it skyrockets. And then, like, where do you go from there? So I can't get your war bond money, the economy the government are basically going to crash. So really, on some level, it's like, super simple as a concept. I mean, you've got to have volunteers, or somebody putting together all the envelopes that are going to be mailed. But they have a team of volunteers, and they're right there working brought to light. And they look like wartime British volunteers. I loved this element of the Albert Campion mysteries.

Sarah Harrison: 49:10

I wasn't 100% sure. Did they know what they were doing? I think they thought they were supporting the war effort. But one aspect I did love about that is that Aubrey had been flirting with the matron in charge. Apparently he's a guy that goes around and just ... you've probably met people like this, I know I have, they get a real buzz on making people fall for them. And that's really all they want. They just want the people to fall for them. They're very charismatic people, and then they're just like, oh, no, I didn't mean that. He moves on to manipulating.

Carolyn Daughters: 49:48

Which no Aubrey actually does with Amanda. No, he doesn't. He'd already jilted her by the end of the book, right? But he that's the same thing. He wanted to get her attention.

Sarah Harrison: 49:59

He does the same thing with Amanda. And that's where we enter the story. And Campion notices this matron that's like, clearly loving on Aubrey and Arbor. But he had just already finished doing that with her, and had moved on to Amanda. And then at the end of the book, he had moved on from Amanda. And who knows where he was going next, when he's mad, although I was unveiled.

Carolyn Daughters: 50:29

I have to say, I would happily read more all about Amanda. I like Amanda.

Sarah Harrison: 50:36

She's really cool. I really liked her character. She was and I liked seeing her, I think through these new eyes, I'm not sure how I'd feel about her in the earlier books, where Campion just takes her for granted.

Carolyn Daughters: 50:50

At one point, several points, but one point, near to the end, Campion's feeling just lost, lost everything's lost. He's very down. And she says to him, Amanda says to him, there are times one has to do a miracle. This is one of those. You think one up. Now, the thing I love about that is just her optimism is infinite, but also she's transferring the responsibility to him. You think one up, I would like to see Amanda also think one up. But the optimism, optimism itself, I think, is, is really cool about her. She has faith in him. She has faith that this is going to work out, that good is going to prevail. I like that.

Sarah Harrison: 51:37

And that's again where I thought, Oh, this must be the very first story in the Albert Campion mysteries, because I'm trying to imagine a reader that's already familiar with the camping character and how they are dealing with the fact that he doesn't know who he is, but they do, the reader does know, whereas with The Bourne Identity, whereas clueless as Jason Bourne, we don't have a pre-Bourne character that we're trying to do.

Carolyn Daughters: 52:01

Or do we? I can't remember.

Sarah Harrison: 52:04

There are a lot of those Bourne books, but the first one starts with the amnesia.

Carolyn Daughters: 52:08

It does, but I just don't know if they ever went back, or if Robert Ludlum ever went back. So as by it does, the intro to at least my version of the book. Does she do it to yours as well?

Sarah Harrison: 52:24

I don't think mine has an introduction.

Carolyn Daughters: 52:28

A.S. Byatt wrote the introduction in my copy. I love she wrote a book called Possession, and it's a book or award winner, I believe, and it's great. And then some number of years after the book was published, Gwyneth Paltrow did a movie called Possession based on the book. And so A.S. Byatt she knows mystery well. She has a lot of really interesting points to make about the book, the story, Campion Allingham generally. And in this one instance, she says, If this is a quote from her, if Wimsey becomes human when he sees Harriet Vane, a crime writer, being tried for a murder she did not commit, Campion becomes human when his superficial memory disappears, leaving his real self naked to his real feelings.

Sarah Harrison: 53:22

That's a great analogy. I love that because that is like, that's when you start developing, I think the real Wimsey, the Wimsey that I think Dorothy Sayers was developing. No, she apparently, like, wrote the character she wanted to fall in love with, and he started developing with Harriet Vane.

Carolyn Daughters: 53:46

Several people say that's a one major difference between Dorothy Sayers and Margery Allingham is Margery Allingham supposedly never fell in love with her character.

Sarah Harrison: 53:57

Well, that's probably a normal course of events.

Carolyn Daughters: 54:00

To not fall in love with your fictional character.

Sarah Harrison: 54:02

It's the least emotionally healthy. But it's a way to get real introspection with this sort of physical trauma. Well, Carolyn, we are actually at time what I know. I know it's unbelievable. As we've been discussing the Albert Campion mysteries, I feel like it's worth mentioning the queens of crime. Since we have brought up some allusions to Dorothy Sayers, do a lot of Agatha Christie. Margery Allingham is considered one of the queens of crime, correct?

Carolyn Daughters: 54:36

She is. Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Ngaio Marsh, who's a New Zealander. We'll get to her later this this year. We'll get to her. And then Margery Allingham. She's one of the four queens of crime, and I knew we were going to read her. I just had to figure out the correct entry point. If I could go back in time, I might have added The Crime at Black Dudley for context, like we did with Whose Body for Dorothy Sayers. But it's very hard, I've discovered, to go back in time.

Sarah Harrison: 55:16

It's a little bit harder than going forward in multiple ways. But this was a great book. It was a total page turner. I actually loved it. Couldn't put it down.

Carolyn Daughters: 55:28

Allingham was really involved in the war effort. She was She supported evacuee children and their parents and the adults supporting those children. She found provisions for them. She found lodging for them blankets and food. And she was on the ground. She wasn't just sitting off in some quaint English town, writing books and sipping tea in the afternoons. I mean, she was, she was in it. And so I think that this being a wartime novel, I think is it's important. She was writing this during the first half of 1940 and the war is very present in England at that time. She was as as by it tells us she was working on this book while hiding in the garden or secreting the manuscript in a biscuit tin during bombings.

Sarah Harrison: 56:31

I can even imagine being like and also, I really need to work on my book. Like ,I'm getting bombed.

Carolyn Daughters: 56:40

It's probably a nice like outlet from a what otherwise would have been a 24/7 job keeping up with the war. And it seems like she was highly involved, very active, not passive in any way. And I'm imagining that writing this book and all the Albert Campion mysteries gave her a bit of an outlet that that maybe she needed.

Sarah Harrison: 57:04

Thank goodness no one had phones back then. I feel like that's our habit. Now, I have a minute between bombings. Let me scroll this and look for something funny on social media, Facebook. How are they doing in France or something like, could really focus on the book in your biscuit tin?

Carolyn Daughters: 57:27

To be writing this book. And I will say I've started watching, there's a BBC series. However, this book was not filmed from anything that I've seen. But it's a 30-year old series, probably 20 or 30 years old, and I have it on Brit Box, which I get through Amazon Prime. And it's a BBC campaign series with lead actor Pete Davison. And just seeing Peter Davison on the screen helps me understand who Albert Campion was before Traitor's Purse. Oh, really, yes, he seems flighty and daft, but also smart and just quirky, like, quirky in the sense of, like, Did you ever watch the series called monk? Quirky. And another one is Elsbeth, right? So I like Elsbeth. She's an offshoot from The Good Wife and the good fight, and super quirky. And he comes across as just flighty and quirky, but also like prescient, and he understands what he's seeing, and he reads into things. And you don't get that sense as much in this book, because you get a sense that a person is outside themselves and rebuilding themselves, which I think is so interesting. Now I want to read all the Albert Campion mysteries.

Sarah Harrison: 59:03

I love that, but that's I'll look for that on Amazon, and if I can find it, I'll put it in our storefront, so you guys can link up to it. If you forgot, I know we haven't been exactly on the social media as much as we ought to be. All of our books from our book list, and all of our books from our special guests are available in our Amazon storefront. So if you want to do us a solid and pay no extra money, you can purchase from there.

Carolyn Daughters: 59:28

And we get something small, like two cents.

Sarah Harrison: 59:32

Five cents, five cents, probably can add up over time.

Carolyn Daughters: 59:35

You can't get a gumball for five cents anymore, but I'm we get, we get a little bit of a kick back. I think you don't pay anymore, and we keep the lights on. Sarah, remind everybody how they can find us. What do you like? What do they do when they do find us?

Sarah Harrison: 59:57

We have a storefront like most any. Me, if you follow any influence on Amazon, you can look for tea tonic and toxin. That's what it's under. On Amazon, we also link to, actually, you can go to our website, and I think all the book links on the website link to our storefront, or at least, link to our store.

Carolyn Daughters: 1:00:20

We're on all the platforms. If you want to listen to us, and we'd love it. It really helps us. If you subscribe to the show on your platform of choice, and if you're enjoying it, please let your friends and family know and leave us a positive review. I think that'd be awesome.

Sarah Harrison: 1:00:38

That actually means a ton writing a review and liking the podcast, subscribing, downloading, all those are completely free ways to help other people find the podcast, other like minded listeners. So I don't know how the algorithm works, but something with that.

Carolyn Daughters: 1:00:59

I will just wrap up here by saying our next book is going to be Laura by Vera Caspary. Published in 1942, it's a sophisticated mystery novel blending romance and psychological intrigue. It's told through shifting perspectives. It follows a detective investigating the apparent murder of a glamorous ad exec. It remains a cornerstone of noir fiction. We've got a movie we're gonna hopefully watch before that. I am not done with this book yet, but I am loving it. It is so well written. It's blowing my mind. There's one character in particular who makes me laugh every time I read this character.

Sarah Harrison: 1:01:39

Oh, man, right now, I already got it. It just arrived, but I haven't also finished it yet, so run out and get it. Folks, watch the movie with us, and we'll chat about it next month. We hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, it would mean the world to us if you would subscribe, and then you'll never miss an episode. Be sure to leave us a rating or review on Apple podcasts Spotify or wherever you listen to tea tonic and toxin. That way, likeminded folks can also find us or on all platforms.

Carolyn Daughters: 1:02:13

Please also follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and YouTube, and if you like comment, follow share rate or review us on any of these platforms, and we may just give you an on air shout out and send you the world's greatest sticker. Finally, please visit our website, teatonicintoxin.com to check out current and past reading lists and support our labor of love starting at only $3 a month.

Sarah Harrison: 1:02:35

We want to thank you for listening to our episode on Traitor's Purse and the Albert Campion mysteries. We also want to thank you for joining us on our journey through the history of mystery. We absolutely adore you until next time, Stay Mysterious.