Over the weekend I read The Attenbury
Emeralds, Jill Paton-Walsh’s continuation of Sayers' detective fiction. The
story itself is implausible but none the worse for that, I’d rather have a good
yarn than something sensible. There are shades of The Moonstone, but more a modern
riff and riposte to it, all well constructed, and I whizzed through quite happy.
Whizzed through partly, to be honest, because there wasn’t
much meat in it to slow me down. The characters lack complexity, compared to
their treatment under Sayers’ hand, and sadly there’s also less humour and what
I can only describe as less energy. Maybe it’s the rationing (the book is set
in the 50s). Everyone is subdued and just a shade too sensible, especially the
new boys. I badly missed St George – killed in action in the war, sadly.
Speaking of the war we also get a namecheck on the Café de
Paris (note to authors: many, many places across the country were bombed out
during the war, why does everyone fixate on the Café de Paris?) where the
particular emerald we’re interested in was worn on the fateful night.
Anyway the pace picks up, Wimsey is hot on the trail, the characterisation of the
people he interviews along the way is actually very good, you really start
to get hooked and then..
And then suddenly the ancestral home burns down and brother
Denver keels over, so Wimsey is the new duke and has to rush off to help,
abandoning his investigation. Long faces all round, grump grump grump, goodness
aren’t the death duties high.. oh well, I suppose his majesty didn’t expect to
have to be king and he managed.
Frankly you would think a dukedom were a glass of
not-so-sparkling cyanide from the way he and Harriet react.
So that oddly unnecessary and pace-killing interlude over
and we’re back in London to continue the main story. Emeralds retrieved, murderer
caught, don’t really believe the motive but never mind, it’s that sort of story.
All nicely wrapped up with a letter from the Duchess of
Denver at the end which is worth the entry price alone. And yet.. and yet I know I'll never reread it.
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