Trivia / Albert Campion

• Accent Depundent: The clue to the answer of who Simister is (Alistair "Ali" Barber), is likely to take American readers a moment or two to 'get' it.
• Creator's Oddball: The Campion books might be billed as mystery stories, but Margery Allingham often switched between genres (helped by the fact that Campion was quite versatile). Sure, she had whodunnits and country house murders, but there were also adventure novels, thrillers, comedies of manners, secret agent thrillers, mild science fiction, and mild fantasy/horror.
• Died During Production: Allingham passed away in the middle of writing a Campion novel. It was finished by her husband Phillip Youngman Carter, who later wrote two more Campion novels of his own. They're remembered as pretty mediocre, if they're remembered at all.
• Life Imitates Art: After World War II, Margery Allingham was told that the diabolical Nazi plan that Campion has to stop in "Traitor's Purse" was something that the Nazis had actually tried to do.
• Referenced by...: In The Fashion in Shrouds, Lugg says "it's crackers to slip a rozzer the dropsy in snide," which is hardboiled British slang for "it's crazy to bribe a police officer with counterfeit money." However, this comes across as a total Word Salad in American English, and was used as a Running Gag in MAD for many years.