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.

Diabolic Candelabra - E. R. Punshon

The settings in Diabolic Candelabra (1942), E. R. Punshon's labyrinthine detective novel, are tantalizingly named and may be just the bait to lure you inside the pages of this remarkably well done story. It seems as if we're in the land of LeFanu with a house called Barsley Abbey surrounded by the picturesque lake Heron's Mere, the treacherous quarry Boggart's Hole with a hidden cave, and a wreck of a hut that is home to a man dubbed Peter the Hermit. The stolen silver items of the title supposedly made by Cellini with several legends attached -- one tells of a curse uttered by one of Cellini's murder victims that will bring death to anyone who keeps them lighted -- only enhance an overall Gothic feel to the story.

But it is the search for a recipe for irresistible chocolates that sends Inspector Bobby Owen and his wife Olive to a small village not far from the manufacturing town of Midwych. Olive has been asked by her friend Mrs. Weston to seek out a woman named Mary Floyd who is known to make these delectable treats so they can sell them at an upcoming church fair. When Owen and his wife track down Miss Floyd they find her in a house in an overgrown forest and living with an invalid mother, an abusive stepfather, and a strange little girl who can communicate with animals and spends more time flitting through the maze of twisting trees of the forest than she does in her home. It's all beginning to sound like something from the Brothers Grimm, isn't it?

Prior to finding Miss Floyd, her mother, and the weird girl named Loo, Owen met up with the local policeman Sergeant Turner who felt it necessary to talk about another legend, this one about two missing El Greco paintings, most likely to give the town an air of mystery Owen thinks. But those missing paintings will play an important part in the story. That and the desire for several people to acquire the secret ingredient in the chocolate recipe which Mary Floyd reveals is the invention of Peter the Hermit. Owen learns that the hermit is a skilled herbalist who spends much of his time concocting a variety of pain relieving medications. This infuriates the local physician, Dr. Maskell, who is losing many of patients to the hermits botched medicines and leads the doctor to call the meddling hermit a "licensed murderer."

Hoping that they can get the recipe for the secret ingredient in the chocolates, a flavor enhancing essence whipped up by the hermit, Owen and Olive head into the woods to find the hermit's hut. When they arrive the place is in a shambles -- furniture thrown about, old books ripped open, and a bloodstain on the floor. Owen notices that although there is freshly chopped firewood outside the axe used to chop that wood is nowhere to be found. And neither is Peter the Hermit. Then a local man named Richard Rawdon, nephew to Sir Andrew Rawdon who owns the forest and land on which the hut is located, disturbs the Owens in their investigation. The situation is further complicated by Rawdon's reluctance to admit why he was visiting the hut at that precise time.

When another local man turns up missing and he is revealed as Charles Clayfoot, owner of a baking and confectionery company that was selling the mysteriously addictive chocolates, Owen is asked to investigate the possibility of foul play. The chocolate recipe, the missing paintings, the cursed candelabra and a variety of strangers popping up in the village looking for one or all of those items make for an intriguing, multilayered and thoroughly captivating detective story. There is a lot to enjoy here from lively and original characters, the creepy settings, and a finale set in a candlelit cave complete with gunfire and fistfights that seems to have been lifted from a Dennis Wheatley thriller.

I'm glad I chose this book by the prolific Punshon to introduce me to his work. He's quite a hit and miss writer which is to be expected from someone who churned out over fifty detective novels as well as historical fiction, adventure and mainstream novels. This one is a definite hit. Most of his mystery novels feature Bobby Owen as detective, but he also wrote about the sleuthing duo of Carter and Bell who appear in five books. Punshon is one of those Golden Age writers who slipped through the cracks. None of his books are currently in print. If you come across an old used copy of Diabolic Candelabra I suggest you buy it then and there. It's one of those refreshing surprises that are waiting to be discovered among the  hundreds of overlooked vintage detective novels. A further recommendation comes in this glowing endorsement emblazoned on the dust jackets of several of the Victor Gollancz editions of Punshon's mysteries:

"What is distinction? The few who achieve it step - plot or no plot - unquestioned into the first rank. We recognized it in Sherlock Holmes, and in Trent's Last Case, in The Mystery of the Villa Rose, in the Father Brown stories and in the works of Mr. E. R. Punshon we salute it every time." -- Dorothy L. Sayers