Review: The Attenbury Emeralds

The Attenbury Emeralds by Jill Paton Walsh
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

We've jumped to 1951. The world is changing, class barriers are being broken down and Peter and Harriet's son goes to school with Bunter's son, who is probably even brighter than Peter's son.

Told partially as Peter and Bunter relating the events of 1921 to Harriet and partially in the present day, the story revolves around the Attenbury Emeralds. Back in 1921 Peter was a guest at the Attenbury's country house to celebrate their daughter's engagement. On the night when the engagement was due to be announced the famous Attenbury Emeralds go missing and only Lord Peter can find out where they went.

Thirty years later the new Lord Attenbury comes to Peter for help, he has tried to retrieve the Attenbury Emerald from the bank to pay death duties, only to be told that it is not entirely clear whether the stone held by the bank actually belongs to Lord Attenbury.

Since this book was published over a decade ago I have no scruples about expressing my issues with the plot, although I will put it in spoilers.(view spoiler)[ First, we are supposed to believe that there were not one, not two, but three enormous identical emeralds, only distinguished by the scripts carved on the back, and don't forget there is also a paste version of the emeralds knocking around. Second, I never did entirely understand the configuration of the emeralds. Suffice it to say that in 1921 there was a whole set, including what I think was a necklace that could be converted into a tiara, which may or may not have been the huge emerald that caused all the problems. Third, the emeralds appear to have been very bad luck, particularly for the Attenbury family. Fourth, we are expected to believe that an impoverished widow held onto one of the emeralds for thirty years just so that she could perpetrate some elaborate nasty trick on wealthy relatives who treated her kindly when no-one else would. (hide spoiler)]

Also, what I really loved about the original books was the glimpses of that period between the wars, frankly the 1950s has never appealed to me as an era in the UK and there are some terrible blows to the Wimsey family in this book, some losses that I felt almost like the death of one of my own family.

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