MR CAMPION'S MEMORY

Albert Campion’s nephew takes a moment at his father’s funeral to ask his uncle for help at the beginning of what turns out to be the most complex case Ripley has yet given him.

Since Campion was never close to his younger brother, Baden, it’s no great breach of etiquette for Christopher Campion to ask what memories he can dredge up from 40 years ago. But Campion puts him off till they can have a quiet lunch together. That’s when he learns that his own name appeared on a list of names headed “1932” and compiled by journalist David Duffy shortly before he was shot to death in his car. Duffy, whom Christopher had shown around McIntyre Tyres in his capacity as Sir Lachlan McIntyre’s PR flak, is also interested in Mary Gould, Henry Gould, Walter Lillman, someone identified only as “N.H.,” and one “L. McIntyre.” In the end, it turns out that Campion really does know what holds all these people together, but since he can’t remember very much about them to begin with, he uses his Scotland Yard connections to converse with McIntyre and several lesser lights. Interspersed chapters hearkening back to the crucial year of 1932 show a much younger Campion laboring to discover why the “gypsy” Shadrach Lee took the trouble to return a silver tankard Lady Cassandra Drinkwater had lost when her late second husband, the wastrel Maj. Edward Gidney, sold it, and a great many other family heirlooms, to cover his gambling debts. As present-day Campion recalls more and more of the past, the plot thickens in utterly unexpected ways; the only development that’s remotely predictable is the identification of Duffy’s killer.

A handsome demonstration that age-appropriate memory loss needn’t keep a beloved franchise character down.