#20booksofsummer23 is a reading challenge started by 746 Books where participants attempt to read 10, 15, or 20 books off of their TBR and review them between June 1 – September 1, 2023. I am trying to read and review 6-7 books that I picked per month. You can see my complete reading list here.
Dean Street Press brings Alice Ormond Campbell’s works back into the spotlight. In 2022 Dean Street Press reissued ten volumes of her crime fiction and resituated Campbell into the pantheon of Golden Age Mystery writers. This Atlanta native was once one of her era’s most well-known and respected mystery authors. She lived a fascinating life of luxury and glamour in the US and abroad and continued to write through WWII. Dean Street Press has provided a fantastic biographical essay by Curtis Evans in their reprint of Keep Away From Water! that elucidates her life and prestige during the Golden Age.
Keep Away From Water! Initially published in 1935 by the Collins Crime Club is my first foray into her work. The book starts innocently; down and out, Sarah MacNeil puts on her best coat and takes her but of money with her to an interview at the Metropolitan Hotel for the role of companion to an elderly lady. The elderly lady in question is Miss Venables, a sharp-witted and compassionate woman who sees MacNeil’s forthright manner, good conscience, and vulnerable position. She decides to hire her on the spot.
Miss Venables desperately needs a companion because she is being terrorized by threatening letters after a visit to the Riviera. During her previous visit to the Riviera, her friend died under suspicious circumstances, and Miss Venables believes he was murdered. The man that murdered her friend has been tailing her around Europe, and every time she feels safe, another threatening letter finds her.
Miss Venables’s household comprises her nattering sister-in-law and her handsome and friendly nephew. Harry Venables dotes on his elderly aunt. Before they can return to France, Miss Venables’s sister-in-law dies of a sudden and suspicious stomach ailment. Still, Miss Venables’s physician Dr. Gilcrest reassures them it was a freak accident, and the household, including Dr. Gilcrest, soon make their way to France.
Once ensconced amongst the ex-pat community of friends of Miss Venables, MacNeil tries to deduce who is frightening Miss Venables. There are plenty of motives amongst Miss Venables’s circle, with many of her friends in reduced financial circumstances, her heir Harry Venables would also inherit a tidy fortune in the event of her death, and MacNeil wonders if his boyish charms are merely a veneer.
However, suspicions start to mount against Dr. Gilcrest as several women he attends die suddenly of gastric ailments. Still, when Miss Venables dies similarly to her friends, leaving a large bequest to Dr. Gilcrest, things look black against him.
Grieving Miss Venables and desperately in love with Dr. Gilcrest, MacNeil decides she will not rest until she knows the truth behind who killed Miss Venables.
The Review
Keep Away From Water! was a unique reading experience compared to other Golden Age mysteries. Chiefly, the book is over 400 pages, which is much longer than the average mystery book at the time, and we spend a lot of time getting to know the characters, their backstories, fears, and motivations, which I found refreshing.
Sarah MacNeil guides the reader through the tale and is a wholly realized woman. She’s compassionate and trusting to Miss Venables but is watchful of her surrounding and the people trying to manipulate her. She’s very observant and pleasant enough that all the characters confide their versions of what’s happening to her without hesitation. She absorbs their tales but thinks critically about what she’s told. Her suspicions which she keeps private, primarily vacillate throughout the book as she tries to piece together how these disparate murders are connected.
If you’re a fan of multiple murders in a book, then this will be a delight; there are lots of people getting bumped off, and Campbell isn’t shy about killing off people that the reader might be rooting for to survive, which is another subversion of tropes since many Golden Age authors hue closely to the philosophy that the good people live. The wrong people in the story are duly punished. At one point, Campbell lights her protagonist, MacNeil, on fire!
Since Campbell kills her characters with impunity and it’s difficult for MacNeil to trust, there is a real sense of suspense throughout the story, which is matched up to eleven after the death of Miss Venables, and MacNeil is penniless and friendless in a foreign country. Her vulnerable position is used to isolate her and discredit her investigation before attempting to murder her in a highly climactic boat scene.
Keep Away From Water! was hampered by two elements: firstly, the drawn-out enemies-to-lovers situation between MacNeil and Dr. Gilcrest. The will they, won’t They love story gets a lot of attention, and MacNeil’s actions are often directed by her attempt to shield Dr. Gilcrest and prove his hand in the murders. I didn’t mind her inability to trust Dr. Gilcrest and their drawn-out love affair as much as some might, but the love story was at the fore of the story too much in places.
I worked out who was responsible for the killings early in the mystery, so much of my focus was on how it all came to be. I wonder if the reader could figure out that aspect of the book without some specialized knowledge. I agree that the central clue is: Keep Away From Water! A few more hidden breadcrumbs for the reader to nibble on during the mystery would prevent the most tedious part of the book- the very long, detailed solution that goes back through the entire puzzle in excruciating detail. This adds excess length to a long story and means that the author has to explicitly hold the reader’s hand through the summation instead of the reader putting things together.
However, the solution is so clever and exceedingly simple that I was thoroughly fascinated by the summation of the crime that I can forgive any foibles I have about how the delivery explains how the murders were committed.
In Keep Away From Water! I can see such excellent characterization and plot development coupled with intense suspense and readability that it’s easy to see why Campbell was such an accomplished and well-loved author. I look forward to reading another of her mysteries and recommend you check out Keep Away From Water!
Golden Age of Detective Fiction 
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