Death Comes to Cambers - SPOILER thread

[Judy]

This is the spoiler thread for Death Comes to Cambers, the sixth Bobby Owen book by E.R. Punshon.

Please feel free to post spoilers here.

[Jill]

I enjoyed this one. This was a typical Country House murder, with Bobby Owen on the scene as a guest. I enjoyed the fact that we learnt everything through Bobby. His thoughts and his travels kept us with him as he did all the "leg-work". I did miss Mitchell with his dry humour, and I'm sad to hear that he does not appear in the future.

[Judy]

Oh, doesn't Mitchell come in at all any more? I wasn't sure, but I'm sorry to hear that, Jill.

I thought he was a much better character than Bobby to be honest, and missed him in this one. There's still quite a bit of dry humour from the author, though.

[ChrisGA]

Enjoyed this...ha, nasty Eddy gets what he deserves😄

[Judy]

Chris, I didn't like Eddy at all either, but I also didn't find him at all convincing - his endless ramblings about his theory and how amazingly famous he is going to be made me glaze over.

I also thought it was a bit too obvious that he was going to be the villain, but maybe just because I hated him!

[Judy]

This might be completely off the wall, but I felt at times as if Punshon might have been inspired by Jude the Obscure when writing this novel.

There is an incident of two people going out to search for a rabbit in a snare in Hardy's novel, which made me think of it. And Eddy is in a somewhat similar position to Jude as a self-taught, frustrated would-be student, although his personality is completely different, as Jude isn't conceited like Eddy.

There were a lot of references to Great Expectations in one of the earlier novels, Mystery Villa, so I'm thinking maybe Punshon was a big admirer of Victorian novels and liked to refer to them.

[Judy]

Was Eddy a bit obvious as the villain? There didn't seem to be all that many other options.

[Carolien]

The series gets better with each book, I think. Eddy was annoying, but I wasn't sure how he had managed to convince his mother that he was in his room while out committing the murder. I missed Mitchell's dry humour, Lawson was not the same.

The description of Eddy as a talented amateur reminded me of the reference I had seen to the archeologist involved in the Sutton Hoo dig, Basil Brown. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basil_B...

The timing doesn't quite work however, as this book was published a few years prior to the Sutton Hoo discovery (and completely different treasures involved).

[Rosina]

I think it is more likely to have been inspired by the discovery of the fossils of Piltdown Man, again discovered by an amateur, although Dawson isn't quite as untrained as Eddy.

[Judy]

I had been reading a lot about Sutton Hoo lately - there is a lot of interest in it in Suffolk in general, and even more so lately following the release of the Netflix film The Dig. I also wondered if the author might have been thinking about archaeology in the light of this, but the timings didn't fit, as you say, Carolien.

I admit I know very little about the Piltdown man - thank you for the link, Rosina.

[Judy]

Carolien wrote: "The series gets better with each book, I think. Eddy was annoying, but I wasn't sure how he had managed to convince his mother that he was in his room while out committing the murder...."

I agree! I couldn't believe in the stuff with the mice - surely they would soon nibble a hole in the shoes/slippers or climb out, rather than just walking around in them.

[Pamela]

This wasn’t my favourite, I also missed Mitchell and I found it quite slow to get going. Then in the last third I became more engaged, but I thought the ending was disappointing as I found the Eddy/Bowman fight rather ridiculous.

[ChrisGA]

Judy wrote: "I had been reading a lot about Sutton Hoo lately - there is a lot of interest in it in Suffolk in general, and even more so lately following the release of the Netflix film The Dig. I also wondered..."

Just saw The Dig on Netflik and thoroughly enjoyed it. What an amazing little boy Robert was. The scene with his mother in the boat was priceless.

[Carolien]

Rosina wrote: "I think it is more likely to have been inspired by the discovery of the fossils of Piltdown Man, again discovered by an amateur, although Dawson isn't quite as untrained as Eddy."

Thank you,, this definitely makes more sense in terms of timing.

[Judy]

ChrisGA wrote: "Just saw The Dig on Netflik and thoroughly enjoyed it. What an amazing little boy Robert was. The scene with his mother in the boat was priceless...."

Yes, it was very enjoyable, I thought, with some great actors.

[Sandy]

I enjoyed this book a lot; Punshon's humor appeals to me though I missed Mitchell. I doubt the mice pulling the slippers while trying to escape their little cages / traps would really sound much like a shuffling person but will just file this away as another unlikely solution along with shooting from a boat, arrows in the dark, poisoned darts while sliding down a bannister.

[Judy]

Good to hear you enjoyed it, Sandy. I rather liked the mice in a way because it is just so wildly unlikely! I would have loved to see someone try to stage this in a film or TV version. ;)

[Bicky]

Ghastly.

Could Punshon have given more clues as to who the murderer was?
For an experienced reader of such books?

Let me list out some of the indicators:

Dene was the only one without a motive.
He had a strong alibi.
He was an upstart.
He was arrogant.
He was an educated upstart who failed to understand that religion and science were to be treated equally - with equal respect or disrespect because god forbid one should think that one was a matter of fact whose truth was exemplified daily while the other was ...not.
He thought that a single death was irrelevant while money could do a lot of good (shades of 19th century capitalists!)

And so many other failures of social awkwardness or as it was in reality and in this book - lack of class.

Normally, the good writers of the Golden Age, while being members and writing for the upper middle classes had the decency to restrict the murderers to members of their own class.

IN GOOD BOOKS, THE BUTLER NEVER DID IT.