Coroner's Pidgin by Margery Allingham

Albert Campion is in the bath. Home on leave after three years of intelligence work overseas his only thought is to enjoy this brief time of relaxation before catching his train home.
Hearing strange noises in his flat he investigates and finds his manservant, Lugg, and a Dowager Marchioness depositing a dead body of a woman onto the bed. Inconsiderate and uncouth, particularly when neither of them knew the identity of the corpse: only that it had turned up in the bed of the young Lord Carados who is about to be married.
Reluctantly, Campion is drawn into the intrigues of the aristocratic household and finds himself dealing with murder and treason.

Earlier in the year I read my first Margery Allingham, The Beckoning Lady and loved the village setting, amusing characters and witty dialogue . The setting and atmosphere of Coroner's Pidgin are a complete contrast with a real feeling of the mood of people confronting the everyday realities of war and the realisation nothing will ever be the same again. 

It is 1943 - London is coping with blackouts and the Blitz. Lugg is working for Heavy Rescue and raising a pig in the aristocratic environment of Carados Square. Then he disappears....there is a second attempted murder, a mystery involving rare wine and a series of art thefts. These seemingly unrelated events make this plot a complicated, and sometimes confusing one but the pieces all come together at the end. 

I like Margery Allingham's style very much and will be looking out for more of her Albert Campion series.

Vintage Mystery Challenge - Golden Age Girls