Reading the Detectives discussion

Welcome to our August/Sept 23 Bobby Owen buddy read of Secrets Can't be Kept . First published in 1944, this is the twentieth book in the series.

Deep in bucolic Wychshire something dreadful is stirring ...

The disappearance of a club-footed and inquisitive youth leads to a tangle involving two instances of stolen jewels, a water-colour which may be the most remarkable picture ever painted ... and eventually to the discovery of a body in a forest with 'a smell of rotting, a smell of things decaying'. The scene abounds with the intense, the afflicted, and the darkly humorous in classic Punshon style. But the murderer himself is on a collision course with fate - aided of course by Inspector Bobby Owen.

Please feel free to post spoilers in this thread.

I really enjoyed this one. This grew into an interesting case, even though no body had actually been found. It involved people who were not who they claimed to be, robbery and past murders. Olive, Bobby's wife, took quite a prominent role is this book.

I also really liked this entry in the series. The mystery was very interesting with all the uncooperative villagers refusing to talk to Bobby. I was impressed that Punshon was able to weave all the various threads into a coherent whole. I had no idea how things would connect.

Glad to see more of Olive and that she can keep Bobby on track.

I enjoyed it too - although I don't find Punshon's weird women at all believable!

I was waiting to learn that Thea Woods was connected in some way with the old Labois family, who had owned Theodores. But I liked her as an aunt!

I enjoyed it too - I liked the contrast between the light tone of the start (and the bizarre music hall guy/vicar!) and the dark tone of the weird women and Ned’s secrets.

It was good to see Olive helping out, I feel Bobby needs a strong assistant as a foil, as the Chief Constable seems to have gone missing and the other policemen haven’t got strong enough characters.

It is very much Bobby working on his own, with only dubious help from his scratch team of superannuated policemen. I would prefer at least one regular (recognisable) assistant, even if he's as useless as Crosby from our other Buddy Read. Having your wife as your main foil seems wrong.

I was surprised that they were calling up his men to the forces. Policemen were a protected species (what was the correct term?), and not liable to be conscripted.

I agree it would be nice to have one or two other strong characters in the police. I'm also not sure what Olive is doing apart from helping Bobby - did I miss mention of any war work she is doing?