IN BRIEF: Death Comes to Cambers - E.R. Punshon

Death Comes to Cambers (1935) was my second venture into the work of E. R. Punshon. I was slightly disappointed. The book is epic length for story essentially about one strangling murder and theft of some jewels. Its 288 pages felt twice that long due to long interview sequences between Bobby Owen, Punshon's policeman detective, and each of the suspects. The problem is that each of the suspects is interviewed twice. In some cases Owen returns for a third time to ask even more questions. This see-sawing between suspects draws out the story, lessens tension and frustrates the reader. A detective story while it may uncover the past and deal with past events should move forward in time, ever forward towards the solution. Travelling back to re-interview someone already given ample stage time in the narrative is allowable to a point, but constant instances of repeat interrogation seems to me like a writer who is padding his story unnecessarily.

Additionally, some of the characters take the time to pontificate on their personal views and raise some topical issues that Punshon apparently was taken with at the time. This is the second detective novel in which I have encountered a debate between religious views of the origin of man in stark contrast to a scientist exploiting Darwinian evolution theory for his own ends. An amateur archeologist and a rigidly conservative minister are at odds in their battle between science and faith throughout the novel. Punshon attempts to make this a possible motive for the murders that occur in the story but it's a weak attempt.

The archeologist is convinced his theory of the development of modern man will turn the world of anthropology upside down. He claims man's use of tools and the reason for using them is what separates man from ape. The conservative reverend calls his theories blasphemous.

Only in the final third of the novel when Owen starts to do real detective work as opposed to routine questioning does the book truly get interesting and enter the realm of originality. There are two encoded messages found in a newspaper Personals column Owen must solve. One is so involved the solution to the code rivals that of the mechanism of the Enigma machine that Alan Turing figured out. The murderer's ingenious method of creating his alibi for the time of the murder is what I consider the book's saving grace. And there's one other surprise in the finale that breaks the rules of a traditional detective novel that I also admired.

Unlike Diabolic Candelabra fascinating in its oddities from start to finish, the characters and situations in Death Comes to Cambers are overly familiar and often dreary to get through. The gossipy landlady, the garrulous tradesmen, a barkeep who knows everyone's business all turn up as they do in most of these mysteries set in small English villages. It doesn’t help that in this book Punshon is still clinging to a baroque writing style that belongs to the early Victorian era. He constructs paragraph long sentences that could be trimmed for coherence and readability. Often these long sentences are really several sentences run together with a series of useless commas and dashes. As a matter of course these long sentences then make many of the paragraphs run uninterrupted for the entire page length. Cumbersome is an understatement.

Death Comes to Cambers is a very scarce book, possibly a genuinely rare book. I found a copy in France, but had to pay an exorbitant fee to have it shipped to me. Currently online there are only two copies for sale -- one in English, the other in French. There is a second English edition listed by Le-Livre.com, but this the one I bought and the seller has obviously not removed the listing from other bookselling sites. I wouldn't lose any sleep over not finding a copy. It's a good novel but it takes some endurance and patience to get to the meat of the story.

The Case of the Green Felt Hat - Christopher Bush

Here's a good example of giving a writer another chance. I attempted to read two Christopher Bush books in the past and each time I was put off by his tendency to drag out the proceedings with lots of tangential chit chat and extraneous business that had little to do with the real story. I never finished those books. Recently I found a rare title in Bush's large output and thought I'd give him one more chance hoping this wouldn't be his third and final strike. The Case of the Green Felt Hat (1939) proved to be one of his more engrossing efforts – a detective novel in which it appeared nearly everyone had an alibi the day and night the crime was committed. Throughout this book (and presumably the entire series) Ludovic Travers, Bush's amateur sleuth, has the uncanny ability of "alibi busting" and it is mentioned repeatedly by those who have worked with him in the past. His talent is put to impressive use in this book in which so many alibis appear to be completely fabricated but turn out to be true and others which seem to be iron-clad are painstakingly smashed open. As an added bonus the book also turns out to be part of a popular subgenre from the 1920s and 1930s – it's a golf mystery.

The story also appealed to me since it happens to have a resonance for me as one of the many people living with a wrecked retirement fund and who is attempting to recover from the financial ruin of the American economy. The murder victim is an ex-con who moves into a peaceful little village of Pettistone that just happens to be populated with several people who were targets of his financial chicanery. They all lost lots of money in his crooked investment schemes. Hanley Brewse unknowingly chose the town thinking he could start his life anew with a new identity, but he is unmasked by none other than Travers who has a memory for criminal faces and their checkered pasts. He reveals Brewse's past to Colonel Feen, Pettistone's chief constable, who for a lark then tells the town gossip, a nosey Parker by the name of Anthony Guff-Wimble. Guffy (as he is deprecatingly referred to by all) is shocked and outraged. He gathers together others from the town who he knows were robbed by Brewse and together they decide to oust the man from Pettistone.

Of course, you can guess what happens. Someone decides to help Brewse exit Pettistone in a manner that will ensure he never returns. He is found dead in a pile of cow manure with only his feet sticking out near a blazing woodshed. When the fire is extinguished and his body is extracted from the dung heap it is discovered that Brewse has been shot squarely in the chest. (A fitting fate I can easily fantasize for many of the avaricious executives of Enron and Shearson Lehman Brothers.) The scene where the police and Travers try to figure out if the body was meant to be incinerated in the dung heap is hysterical. A local farmer educates the city men on the not so inflammable properties of manure:

"But suppose there was paraffin or petrol in it?"

Haylock grabbed another handful or two of the manure heap and smelt it, then pushed one handful under Feen's nose.

"There you are sir. Do you smell for yourself. There ain't no paraffin nor nothing like that."

"Excellent," Feen said, and again was only too glad to take his word for it.

Travers, Colonel Feen, and George Warden (a visiting Scotland Yard inspector), spend much of their time interrogating the suspects, examining alibis, and weeding out the lies from the truth. The detection is not just confined to routine questioning, though much of that is complex and wily. There is some devious and amusing business with making plaster casts of shoe tread patterns found near the dead body. Travers dreams up an elaborate ruse in order to trick one of the suspects into stepping into fresh mud so that he can later make casts of the shoe prints to match up against those found at the crime scene.  Remarkably there are two automobile breakdowns on the same day within the vicinity of the crime that will be the focus of much discussion. There is also a neat map (see below) that serves as the frontispiece. The map hides a very subtle clue that eventually leads Travers to the final solution. An acute reader may also spot it, but it eluded me.

An act of vandalism adds additional mystery. A team of slanderous pranksters paint an insulting message outing Brewse as a former criminal and disguise it as a movie advertisement. "Now Showing CONVICT 99" is part of the elaborate sign found painted on Brewse's home. The artwork is discovered the morning after his body is dragged from the manure pile. Travers and crew decide it must have been done prior to the murder by more than one individual based on its size and detail as such a message would've been meant to be seen by Brewse and would hardly be a worthwhile effort had it been done after the man was killed.

Throughout the story golf also plays an important part. Similar to the novels of Herbert Adams Bush uses golf as a social setting that serves as a stratagem in talking about the crime. The dialogue during these golf matches is not the only thing that will help in unmasking the culprit. A keen reader will do well to pay attention to the numerous descriptions of expert golfing as well as errant shots and where missing golf balls turn up. The game of golf itself will play a very important part in the final solution. The manner in which the murderer planned the crime is devious but it will be complicated by the intrusion of both accidental and purposeful misdirection on the part of other suspects who monkey with evidence.

In this novel Travers is newly married to Bernice Haire, a former actress. Bernice joins her husband in the detection by acting as confidante to several of the women characters who all invite her to play golf. Her conversations provide Travers with some pertinent background that help him in his "alibi busting." Bernice's sister Joy, a talented impressionist and actress herself, makes a cameo in the final pages. Joy will also play an important part in the investigation by using her acting skill and her very malleable vocal cords. Travers' clever plan to employ her talents, however, nearly backfires when yet another unexpected event takes place.

I'm glad I gave Bush a third go. This turned out to be a real page turner with some expert misdirection, a cleverly thought out crime with all its oddities and red herrings explained, and a couple of well done surprises in the end. The detection is varied and unusual. The characters are colorful and original. Just when you think someone like Norman Quench, Pettistone's vicar, is just another detective novel cliche Bush surprises you when the vicar turns out to be one of the finest golfers in the bunch with some impressive trick shots. The book has a lot of nifty surprises like that. The overall flavor is more modern than many of the books of this pre-WW2 era. Finally, and most importantly for me, nothing is superfluous here, everything has a purpose, which is the way I prefer a genuine detective novel from this era.

The Case of the Green Felt Hat is the 20th book in a series which began in 1927 and ran all the way into the late 1960s. This particular title is available in both UK and US editions. A few copies are out there, but tend to run in the pricier range with the cheapest offered at $31 for a reading copy of the Thriller Book Club edition and the most expensive priced $296 for a copy of the Cassell first edition described as "very good" with no other supporting information. I think the higher prices are due to this particular title's scarcity and the sudden cultish status of Christopher Bush among collectors of Golden Age detective fiction.