to (but despised by) Campion Literary significance and criticism The setting, a semi-island called Mystery Mile, is based on Mersea Island, Essex, where Allingham spent some time in her youth, and set her first novel, Blackkerchief Dick. The book includes some hints about Campion's background. His real first name is "Rudolph", and his last name begins with "K". Campion looks enough like some Very Important Person to impersonate him on a trip to Asia. These hints appear off and on throughout many other Campion novels. Campion's affection for Biddy, and jealousy of Marlowe Lobbett, is quite apparent throughout, though never explicitly stated. Campion's thoughts turn to Biddy again in Look to the Lady. The character of Simister bears a striking similarity to Keyser Söze, a fictional character in the 1995 film The Usual Suspects — an all powerful crime lord, operating entirely through minions so that he himself is never exposed, thought by many to be a myth, to have existed too long to be a single man, and originating from the Middle East. Television adaptations The story was adapted for television by the BBC, the last of eight Campion stories starring Peter Davison as Campion and Brian Glover as Lugg. Originally broadcast as two separate hour-long episodes, the original UK air date was 9 March 1990. The series was shown in the United States by PBS. References Margery Allingham, Mystery Mile, (London: Jarrolds, 1930) Margery Allingham, Mystery Mile, (Vintage, Random House, 2004) External links An Allingham bibliography, with dates and publishers, from the UK Margery Allingham Society A series of Allingham plot summaries, including many Campion books, from the UK Margery Allingham Society A review of the book from who-dunnit.com A page about the book from the Margery Allingham Archive 1930 British novels Jarrold Publishing books Novels by Margery Allingham Novels set in Suffolk Doubleday, Doran books