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CPU, Intel, VDU, server, Megabyte, MHz, monitor, DVD...Forget the techical jargon. This is a concise and down-to-earth guide that will help you become computer literate - in your own time and on your own terms. You can do it. Beginning with the basics, The Beginner's Guide to Computers explains, in your language, the useful terms and shortcuts that will enable you to use a computer with confidence and competence. Includes everything you need to know to benefit from the Internet and e-mail and to get it working for you. ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Celebrated amateur detective Albert Campion awakes in hospital 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 . . . ... Read more

Customer Reviews (10)

Interestingly plotted
I enjoyed reading Allingham's novels in the 1980's when I read most of the classic murder mysteries, so I was surprised when I didn't recognize this one at all."Traitor's Purse" is not a classic whodunit; it's more of a spy story.Perhaps I chose not to read it at the time because I wasn't into that type of fiction.

The style of the book is unusual for Allingham.Instead of a straight forward tale of sleuth Albert Campion putting together the clues to a murder, this story starts with a hero who is handicapped by a head injury that leaves him amnesic.He not only doesn't know what happened before he lost consciousness, he doesn't know who he is or who anyone else is.All he knows--or senses, actually--is that he has something urgent to do.

With this more limited omniscience, the reader learns who the hero is and gradually what he must do only as the man himself does.This is a very clever use of perspective.In the normal way of things the counter espionage agent would know what the issue was from the beginning and the tension would arise from the action inherent to accomplishing and the danger of not accomplishing the goal.It would also arise from the question of whom to trust.

In this instance, however, there is considerable tension right from the start from the fact that everything must be learned.We finally realize the story's perspective is that of the usual Allingham protagonist--no surprise there--so we know that this is Albert Campion, even if he does not.Since we also know what dangerous foes he faces, we know that he is in considerable danger from individuals he doesn't know and perhaps isolated by his own amnesia from agents of assistance.All of this makes for an exciting read.

Probably the most interesting point of this perspective is the psychological.Campion becomes more critical of his relationships with others.He is now a "disinterested" party to his own life and can look at his probable past behavior, as it is illuminated by the responses of his friends, with a more introspective point of view.His relationships with both Lugg and his fiancé Amanda are cases in point.

The setting of the story is World War II England.The war has only just begun and German espionage activity during the immediate prewar years is about to yield major profits. Two murders take place, but neither of them is focus to the story.Their occurrence simply obscures the events about to take place.This may frustrate the reader who expects a murder mystery to be about the murder victims and a solution to the crime.That may be why, in fact, I didn't read it myself before.

Red herrings are introduced, but they are in the form of suspects whose motives are obscured by their apparent past association with pre-amnesic Albert Campion or with their placement as individuals within English society.After a while almost everyone seems a possible suspect in the drama of misaligned loyalties in wartime.Furthermore, there are inordinate subplots that factor into the murder mysteries, so the "guilty party" might be either guilty of one or several things or several guilty parties might be working alone or in collusion.It's difficult to say if the reader will feel "cheated" or not by the dénouement.There is no actual plot manipulation that robs you of your conclusions, so I suspect not.

A well crafted story.

Lost:One Memory.If found, please contact Albert Campion
Allingham is one of the greatest mystery writers.However, it takes some patience with the Englishness and the time period. Campion is just fetching.He begins as a young sleuth with a strong resemblance to Bertie Wooster.As time goes by, he gets harder, deeper, more slippery.Allingham started writing mysteries at a young age.She and her graphic artist husband co-wrote the Campion mysteries, but they were published under her name.Two of them were published--and perhaps written--after her death, by her husband.The Campion novels begin with the 1920s/1930s "silly season" for English society.He first appears in Crime at Black Dudley.British men were overwhelmingly shell-shocked and scarred by WWI.Women were liberated.Rules had been tossed aside.The Lord Peter Wimsey novels make this changing status more openly affecting the characters.Allingham lets it go unstated.She also kept writing and kept Campion up with the times, so he "lives" until the 1970s, with adult children.This book is probably the easiest to pick up and read all on its own, since Campion is so isolated in this book and the WWII setting is better known.This is a really great thriller and it is great to see it back IN PRINT.

Average Stuff
I heard a lot about this writer and this was the only book from her Campion series that was bit cheap. It is about a man who loses his memory and remembers it in spurts and saves his country!I am afraid I didn't enjoy it at all but I wouldn't say that I won't be reading this series in future. It is just not menacing enough though the writer tried to create such an atmosphere, some of the scenes read were very childish and Enid Blyton-ish, even Agatha's very bad books are better than this book!

perhaps you should try amnesia, too
This book has moved me a great deal twice, an eight-year-or-so gap between.It is as good as I remembered.

The basic impetus behind the story is, I fancy, as old as these "lost prince growing up as swineherd or kitchen boy until he discovers his identity when called upon to kill a dragon/save a princess/rule his country" tales.This sense of finding out that one is estranged from one's intrinsic and important identity is very powerful.No doubt we all have wished at one time to discover how important we are.Now we in Britain and America no longer believe that heredity or aristocratic birth itself confers value on an individual (although some vestige of the notion perhaps drives some adoptive children to try to find their "real" selves with their birth parents), we have to wait until a person develops their identity in adulthood, then find some way to estrange them from it.Amnesia will do.Our hero wakes up, knowing nothing about himself, but quickly finds out that, although he doesn't remember what it is, he's been entrusted to prevent a calamity of national proportions--and he's got two (or three?) days left in which to do it.

I compare this book to the Bourne Identity, which I think I like for almost exactly the same reasons, except that in the Bourne Identity, the identity of the amnesiac is the main issue, whereas in Allingham's Traitor's Purse, the question of identity is rapidly swallowed up in the mission that "Albert Campion," whoever he might be, was carrying out.Perhaps Allingham could have done a little more with the identity business.But the process of discovering Campion's mission is drawn out very efficiently, using about every technical device of delay you can think of.The mission itself, when you come right down to it, isn't perhaps quite as flashy or ingenious as the long build-up has prepared us to hope for--but, as is so often the case for mysteries, the solution is an efficient, not the primary, cause for the book; it merely gives the author excuse to realize characters, witty dialogue, a lush little village.

The long procession of reasons why Campion can't tell anyone about his amnesia, the succession of ways he extricates himself nimbly from sticky situations his ignorance generates, the frequent charitable assumptions friends make to explain his blank looks, the periodically perfect questions he puts to people who chattily tell him exactly what he needs to know to take the next step in his walk through mental darkness, the handy twin cracks over the head--all this strains credulity, at times, yes--feels a bit like a technical tour de force of plotting, not something that could have happened.But emotional verisimilitude makes up for all that.It is a very sweet love and morality story in which our hero, through his amnesia, learns to avoid the developing character flaws that might have eventually led him down the same path as our villain.It helped give a name to the feelings I had for my wife, when we were recently married, eight years ago, and it brings them back from where they are still stored--and aired, as pleasure that's slowly maturing with age--like the Masters' cache of wine deep in the hill.Those are the kinds of things it's lovely to discover are part of you already.Allingham is witty, although Campion is decidedly more grown up than in previous instalments.She uses all sorts of clever tricks, symbols, echoes--the unfinished Cockney couplet being one of the best.Also the use of the clock in the prison scene is a bit obvious but agonizingly effective.A smart author telling a good story that plucks at a heartstring most of us have, I think.Well worth the time to read, and to come back to.

This is an almost technically perfect thriller!
But what else do we expect from the great Allingham?Margery Allingham's Albert Campion has been one of my very favourite sleuths for a long time.I can't believe that I missed reading this book when I was making my way through the entire bibliography!Ms. Allingham can tell a story, and this book will keep you on the edge of your seat throughout.In it we find Mr. Campion at a great disadvantage because he wakes up in hospital after a bump on the head, and he does not remember who he is, or why he has this sense of urgency that he needs to prevent a major disaster.He can't tell anyone his problem because he finds that everyone is counting on him to save the day, so he must muddle through and try to make sense of what is going on.We are faced with blinds and double-blinds, and the reader is kept guessing throughout just as much as poor Campion.What a wonderful story!I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would recommend this to anyone who has not experienced the genius of Ms. Allingham before. ... Read more

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The first killing took place at a crowded art show, in full view of the cream of London society. For the second killing, only the victim and the murderer were present. Now the scene was set for the third--a lavish dinner party with vintage wines, and with Albert Campion's death as the main course. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (8)

Abridged Audiobook of Death of a Ghost
I would only give one star to the abridged recording of this book. See if you can find the unabridged version of this audiobook read by Frances Matthews it's worth it and I would give that five stars.If not read the book itself and try some of her others.
John Lafcadio was a well-known artist, every year since his death his wife Belle has given a large party to celebrate his life and this includes the unveiling of one of his previously unseen paintings. This year someone is murdered at the event and Belle calls in Albert Campion, a friend of the family to investigate but then there is another death. Albert Campion and Inspector Oates interview some very temperamental and self centred suspects as they make enquiries into the art world which is unfamiliar to them both. They discover the dishonesty, jealousy and greed which is part of that world. Campion knows they are facing an ingenious and ruthless killer and worries who will be the next person to be killed.
I find all of Margery Allingham's books are very enjoyable and have read them all several times. Some are real period pieces with humerous characters who have strong London and Suffolk accents. The audiobooks are especially good when read by Frances Matthews. Try Dancers in Mourning, A Fashion in Shrouds and More Work for the Undertaker.

Campion grows up . . .
I'm reading the Campion mysteries in order (I read a few many years ago and didn't really like them, thought they were "Sayers Light"). I realize now how wrong I was - Allingham is a great writer, and Campion in this, his sixth outing, is really maturing. He's no longer just the vacuous "universal uncle", using a well-bred, slightly simple facade to hide his intelligence and slip into the background, observing and solving his mysteries. In this mystery, set among the bohemian artsy set of 1930s London, he's hunting a bold, possibly insane killer; one of the fascinating story angles is that Campion knows fairly early on whodunnit, but Allingham handles the cat-and-mouse between Campion and the increasingly daring and unstable killer masterfully. I see in these reviews some readers were not thrilled with this departure for Campion, but I was really impressed by Allingham's portrayal of the pathos and hypocrisy of aging models, failed artists, and manipulative poseurs who make money off the fruits of the art world.

Campion visits the artsy set
The late great artist John Lafcadio had left behind twelve crated paintings with instructions that they were to be opened and displayed, one per year, beginning ten years after his death, at a party to be held in his London home/studio.He had a two fold motivation for this scheme, first to keep up demand for his work and second to annoy his chief rival even from the grave.When he made these plans Lafcadio probably never dreamed just how many deaths these arrangements would cause.

Albert Campion is attending the eighth posthumous Lafcadio opening.His hostess, Lafcadio's widow, Belle is very much in charge, of the party, her husbands estate, and her very bohemian family - two of her husbands former models, Lisa and Donna Beatrice; his agent, Max Fustian; their granddaughter Linda and her fiance, Thomas Dacre and his wife Rosa-Rosa.During the party the lights went and when they were restored revealed that a murder had been committed.Campion begins to investigate the crime when all fingers point to Linda.Secrets and long held resentments begin to surface, leading to a second murder but of course, Campion triumphs in the end.

While DEATH OF A GHOST is listed as a mystery, it is more strictly a thriller.The murderer is revealed long before the end of the book, the remaining few chapters involve Campion proving his case.While there is a certain amount of tension involved in the action scenes and a small challenge for the reader to figure out the culprit this is really more of a straight character driven novel rather than either a mystery or a thriller.

Campion has often been compared to Sayers' Lord Peter.In the early novels in particular, Campion bore much in common with Wimsey.The art colony setting for this 1934 novel has a lot in common with Sayers' 1931 FIVE RED HERRINGS.Happily though Campion emerges from Wimsey's shadow and emerges as an interesting character in his own wright.

"He was my dearest enemy."
Margery Allingham once described a mystery novel as if it were a four-sided box: "a Killing, a Mystery, an Enquiry and a Conclusion with an element of satisfaction in it." The first three elements provided her as an author with the discipline that let her imagination have play with the last.

In this book (6th in the series and written in 1934), the book only partly follows the whodunit form as the identity of the killer becomes clear very early on in the book. Instead of being an exercise in detection, it is a meditation on the relationship between detective and killer. Campion meets his nemesis, and the trick becomes how to stop him before he kills again.

As usual, Allingham is a brilliant lens on the issues and problems of Europe between the wars. Artists and their models swirl through society life and the shocked countryside. The girls are entirely modern-- all sharp angles and violent emotions. Campion attends a cocktail party where "a dirty little thought concerning Hitler and the great Duke of Marlborough wafted across the smoke-laden air". These moments are Allingham at her best, and what lifts her books so far above the genre limitations.

Ultimately, it is not the best or most successful Campion novel, in part because of the chances she takes with the relationship between Campion and his "dearest enemy". All the same, it is more than worth reading, and I recommend it highly.

If you are not familiar with Allingham, I suggest that you find a copy of her work if you can. She deserves to be set next to Ngaio Marsh and Agatha Christie as one of the great pioneers of detective fiction.

Disappointing Allingham
The best bit is the artistic milieu, especially the industrious Potters who live in a shed in the garden. Though lacking in talent, they are genuinely gripped by art. Mr Campion seems ghostly himself, drifting through, letting others talk and not cracking a single joke. And the lovely Lugg doesn't even get a mention. What was Margery up to? ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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Originally published in 1914.This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies.All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume. ... Read more

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The book may have numerous typos or missing text. It is not illustrated or indexed. However, purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original rare book from the publisher's website. You can also preview the book there.Purchasers are also entitled to a trial membership in the publisher's book club where they can select from more than a million books for free.Subtitle: Reports of Cases Decided in the Circuit, Superior, Criminal, Probate, County and Municipal Courts in Illinois and Including the Unreported Decisions of the Supreme Court of IllinoisOriginal Publisher: T.H. Flood ... Read more

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