It’s a Mystery: The Last Summer of the Camperdowns, by Elizabeth Kelly

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While cruising the opening chapters of The Last Summer of the Camperdowns, the two totally self-obsessed women from BBC’s comedy series, Absolutely Fabulous, sprang to mind. I thought they were the ultimate narcissists, but they have nothing to hold over Greer and Godfrey Camperdown, parents of the novel’s narrator, Riddle, an only child. Greer is a former movie star, Godfrey an aspiring congressman and songwriter who enjoys treating dinner guests with impromptu performances. Just as in AbFab, the child has to play referee when the parents’ egos run amok, something that occurs nearly every day. Riddle is a thoroughly engaging 13 year old, who copes with the madness around her by throwing herself into horseback riding, that age old refuge of young girls. One summer afternoon, when searching for her lost puppy in the stable, Riddle overhears the ominous sounds of someone in pain and distress. To her horror, the stable manager discovers her presence, realizing that Riddle has been an ear-witness to something terrible. He spends the rest of the novel reminding her that she had better keep the secret.

This is the story of how Riddle copes with her guilt over not telling what she knows, which becomes crushing when she figures out who the victim was. At the same time, she develops her first agonizing crush on the older brother of the victim. Riddle is a fairly reliable narrator, and her accounts of the actions of the adults that surround her are perceptive and telling. Ancillary characters are also well drawn. The setting, among the dunes and ponds of Wellfleet, Cape Cod, is idyllic, evocatively described, as are the times, the very early 70’s when memories of WWII are still sharp. The length of this book is excessive, bogging down in the middle of the story, but the ending is a winner; just when you’re sure you know what happened, a series of bombshells in the final dramatic chapters puts paid to that illusion. If you decide to read Last Summer, have patience when the pace slows, because once it picks up, it’s memorable.