Ripley's newest entry in his continuation of Margery Allingham's beloved Albert Campion series has the energetic septuagenarian tracking down a killer, a coven, and a lost pet. Campion is commanded by Dame Jocasta Upcott, doyenne of London theater, to find her dog, who was lost when her yacht ran aground off England's coast. Then an old friend asks Campion to host U.S. doctoral student Mason Clay, who's coming to England to research a group of settlers who left England in the 1600s for America. Both assignments sound rather humdrum to Campion, but he agrees to take them on, only to find that not only are the two tasks bizarrely linked, but also that they will involve threats to his life, a village with dark secrets, murder, and an illicit smuggling ring. As usual, Campion ties all the disparate elements into a neat package and solves the case with elegance and flair. Filled with dry wit, laugh-out-loud banter, well-paced action, and quirky characters, this latest opportunity to follow in the footsteps of the ever-charming Campion will delight series fans old and new.

It's 1971 in Ripley's exceptional eighth outing for Margery Allingham's sleuth Albert Campion (after 2020's Mr. Campion's Seance), and the yacht belonging to Dame Jocasta Upcott, a force in the British theatrical world, has been found abandoned on an Essex mudbank, with the only sign of life the boots of the yacht's captain, Francis Jarrold, stuck in the mud 50 yards away. Dame Upcott wants Campion to search for her dog, Robespierre, who was aboard the vessel, not Jarrold. Since finding Robespierre will benefit his actor son, Rupert, Campion agrees. He winds up having to solve a murder that may be linked to an Essex witches' coven that sailed to Massachusetts in 1692 and landed in Salem at the time of the witchcraft trials. Ripley skillfully injects humor into the twisty plot, and elements reminiscent of the classic horror film The Wicker Man add to the creepy atmosphere. Both old and new Campion fans will hope for many more exploits. (June)

An American graduate student tracing the Essex roots of a mysterious 17th-century colony on the Outer Banks arrives in England just in time for some very contemporary murder. This much is known: Back in 1692, a hardy group of villagers from Wicken-juxta-Mare signed the Billericay Covenant, took passage on the Abigail, and set sail for Salem, Massachusetts. Those who didn't care for their new home headed farther south to Harkers Island, where a few of their descendants still speak with a pure Essex accent. Harvard anthropologist Kathryn Luger's student Mason Lowell Clay, who wants to know more about the immigrants and their covenant, writes Rupert Campion, who met professor Luger when he was a Harvard student eight years ago in 1963, to ask for help with his inquiries. Rupert's father, aging detective Albert Campion, offers Mason gratis accommodations but is preoccupied with what seems to be quite another case: the matter of veteran actress Dame Jocasta Upcott's dog, Robespierre, and the captain of her yacht, the Jocasta, both of them missing ever since the yacht ran aground in the mud of Wicken. Capt. Francis Jarrold is relatively dispensable, but not Robespierre. So it's very lucky indeed that Rupert finds the dog alive, although the man who vanished with him has died. Mason's research uncovers a great deal of new information about the Billericay Covenant, none of it uplifting, and suggests that the questionable activities of the locals nearly 300 years ago have taken a disturbing new turn. Ripley lays out all this material more conscientiously than he knits it together, and the appealing franchise hero is pretty well buried under all the skulduggery. Despite a highly satisfying showdown, not Mr Campion's finest hour. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.