September 13, 2016

Cocktail Talk: Tether’s End

http://i.ebayimg.com/16/!B1sKYSwEWk~$(KGrHqV,!h0E)q2-qTm)BMffcNlW8g~~_35.JPG?set_id=8800005007I’ve had a handful of Allingham Campion Cocktail Talks here recently (I picked up a handful of Campion books recently, too, trying to catch up and see what I thought of them all at once). Tether’s End (aka Hide My Eyes, aka Ten Were Missing – lots of aka here) is one of my favorites, though also a tiny bit disappointing in that Campion actually isn’t in it a ton. But it’s still a fine yarn around a somewhat charming psychopath and various other intriguing characters, all happening within a short time period. But, best of all, is the below Cocktail Talking, because it’s fairly rare in my experience to come across the legendary Fernet-Branca in a mystery book (outside of Italian mysteries, I suppose). So, I was super excited to see it. Actually, I think I’m going to create a drink with said legendary liquid, and call it Tether’s End. It’s such a dandy drink name, and I’m sure Campion wouldn’t mind.

Again the childhood friends exchanged glances, and as Gerry went out of the back door nearest to the theatre the manager’s soothing voice reached him as it addressed Mr. Vick.
“If you’ve been on sherry since opening time, sir, I wonder if you’d like a change? What about a nice Fernet-Branca cocktail?”

Tether’s End, Margery Allingham

July 26, 2016

Cocktail Talk: Coroner’s Pidgin

coroners-pidginHey, look at this, a Cocktail Talk post from an author I’ve never featured before! That’s cause for a drink. Hold on. Okay, I’m back, with drink in right hand as I type with the left. Anyway, I haven’t read all the Margery Allingham Albert Campion books, just a handful. Most of them, pretty solid (admittedly, I got into them first by watching the late-eighties British teevee show based on them, starring the charming Peter Davison, and so now I picture him as I read the books, which is pretty swell), though she slips into a boring-in-today’s-light classicism too often, and an awful casually-racist-in-any-light moment once or twice. Skip the books that hit the latter, and try to forgive the former. But this particular book, Coroner’s Pidgin (published as Pearls Before Swine in the US), set during WW II, has the time period, which is interesting, a good mystery, Campion at his best, and the below quote, which is quite apropos:

He paused for his announcement to have the right effect. Nothing so forceful as a dramatic effect, but one in which just the right element of surprise and interest was as carefully blended as in, say, a very good Highland whisky.

– Margery Allingham, Coroner’s Pidgin

Rathbun on Film