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3.39 AVERAGE
3.39 AVERAGE
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
No
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
N/A
funny
mysterious
fast-paced
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Plunged into artistic Scotland, Sayers is as on-point at ever. I knew I should've been keeping track of the clues better, but I still managed to lose most of them! One point of order - train timetables are a nightmare to follow by audiobook.
I picked up /The Five Red Herrings/ because I already love the Lord Peter Wimsey books by Sayers, and this book will not disappoint a reader who is already committed to reading the entire set. I would not, however, include it in an abbreviated recommendation list because it lacks some of the highlights I was rather attracted to in previous installments. The supporting characters, for example, are a cast of local policemen who do not hold my interest as much Detective Parker and Bunter (who make enjoyable appearances in this book, but have a small role) or Miss Climpton (who is not present). However, Sayers's prose is flawless, her cast of temperamental and suspicious artists is delightful, and the character studies will remain with me.
This book lost its 5-star rating because it put me through an inordinately long and rather convoluted contemplation of local train timetables and the times it would take to travel from Point A to B to C via D by foot, bike, car and/or train. (the fifty-year-old mass market paperback I was reading it on came with a local map, which was entirely illegible in its printing, and I couldn't hope to sort the relative locations of the towns, the homes, the sites where witnesses saw so-and-so). I consider this a flaw in the pacing and literary qualities of this book, but it is a feature of a detective novel where the reader is invited to play along. The puzzle aspect of this story seems to me solid and clever, giving the reader a fair shake at solving the crime. I say it "seems so to me" because I am not an expert on this aspect of detective fiction. I guessed the wrong suspect by a mile.
My priorities with all detective fiction are as follows (in order of my personal interest):
1. It has literary quality.
2. It explores epistemology, or man's ability to know and uncover the unknown.
3. It explores the corruption at the heart of human nature even when appearances seem innocent.
4. It explores themes of justice and whether the detective is able to or has the right to bring it.
5. It has a good puzzle/mystery/whodunnit or howdunnit etc.
To my mind, The Five Red Herrings does a good but not a stand-out job on all these criteria. It sacrifices #1 a little on the alter of #5, and #4 was shaping up to be a very interesting exploration but was a bit rushed at the end--could have sacrificed some of the timetables to make room for an epilogue, in my opinion.
This book lost its 5-star rating because it put me through an inordinately long and rather convoluted contemplation of local train timetables and the times it would take to travel from Point A to B to C via D by foot, bike, car and/or train. (the fifty-year-old mass market paperback I was reading it on came with a local map, which was entirely illegible in its printing, and I couldn't hope to sort the relative locations of the towns, the homes, the sites where witnesses saw so-and-so). I consider this a flaw in the pacing and literary qualities of this book, but it is a feature of a detective novel where the reader is invited to play along. The puzzle aspect of this story seems to me solid and clever, giving the reader a fair shake at solving the crime. I say it "seems so to me" because I am not an expert on this aspect of detective fiction. I guessed the wrong suspect by a mile.
My priorities with all detective fiction are as follows (in order of my personal interest):
1. It has literary quality.
2. It explores epistemology, or man's ability to know and uncover the unknown.
3. It explores the corruption at the heart of human nature even when appearances seem innocent.
4. It explores themes of justice and whether the detective is able to or has the right to bring it.
5. It has a good puzzle/mystery/whodunnit or howdunnit etc.
To my mind, The Five Red Herrings does a good but not a stand-out job on all these criteria. It sacrifices #1 a little on the alter of #5, and #4 was shaping up to be a very interesting exploration but was a bit rushed at the end--could have sacrificed some of the timetables to make room for an epilogue, in my opinion.
An enjoyable whodunit, though I found the dialect wearing. (At least this time, the clue wasn't hidden in the dialect).
There are too many trains and too many places and frankly, too many white men and they're way too similar to each other. Of course the solution was anticlimactic, there could be no other way for this to end. I liked the bit where everybody says their theory, but there are just too many annoying details for anybody to keep up... Comparing Sayers's novels to Agatha Christie's, so far, I think is undeniable that Sayers is the better writer. But she just can't create perfect puzzles like Christie and a few others did, and that's a bit frustrating because well, that's the reason anybody really reads mystery books. Sure, Lord Peter is a very entertaining character and I simply love Bunter in whatever he does, but if the mystery fails to keep us within its grip, there isn't really much left of the book at all....
adventurous
challenging
funny
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Character
Loveable characters:
Yes
The Five Red Herrings is one of my least favorite Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries because it relies for its solution on a complicated set of railway timetables. An obnoxious artist is found dead in a ravine, his painting perched up on the ridge behind him. Lord Peter is on vacation in the artist colony, and he quickly determines that the victim could not have painted the picture. Since almost everyone in the colony hated the victim, many people have a motive, but only a few of them have the talent to fake a picture in exactly the victim's style.
See my complete review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/five-red-herrings/
See my complete review here:
http://whatmeread.wordpress.com/tag/five-red-herrings/
mysterious
slow-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Yes
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
No