The Fashion in Shrouds

"The best of mystery writers" - The New Yorker


First, there is a skeleton in a dinner jacket. Then a corpse in a golden aeroplane. After another body, Albert Campion nearly makes a fourth...


Both the skeleton and the corpse have died with suspicious convenience for Georgia Wells, monstrous but charming actress and femme fatale with a raffish entourage. Georgia's best friend just happens to be Valentine, a top couturiere and Campion's sister. In order to protect Valentine, Campion must unravel a story of blackmail and ruthless murder in the world of high fashion.


'Dancers in Mourning and The Fashion in Shrouds were published in 1937 and 1938, and are the best examples of Allingham's capacity to create the atmosphere, and machinery, and ideology, of enclosed worlds - the stage and the musical in Dancers in Mourning; the world of haute couture in The Fashion in Shrouds.' - A S Byatt, The Telegraph


'To Albert Campion has fallen the honour of being the first detective to figure in a story which is also a distinguished novel.' - The Observer