Reviews - A Presumption of Death

A Presumption of Death by Dorothy L. Sayers, Jill Paton Walsh

56 reviews for:

A wonderful addition to the Wimsey canon. Walsh developed this story from letters published in papers during WWII. Sayers wrote exchanges purportedly from Harriet to Peter and vice versa so Walsh picked up from there.
This story has Peter on a secret spy mission and Harriet evacuated to their country home with her own children as well as the Parker family. One night during a practice air drill, one of the girls who have also been evacuated to the village is killed. Harriet begins working on the case but luckily Peter comes in to help wrap it up.

notthatbuffy's review against another edition

2.0

So I'm rereading all the Lord Peter books and I got these "collabs" from my mom with her books. I read them before but I stopped for a long time after this one until she told me the NEXT one was good. I remember it being so - we will see.
Anyway - this book - Ugh. "Thrones Dominations" had issues, but this book magnifies those while not even having a good mystery. I mean, the solution to the original murder is just offhandedly solved near the end like, "oh, she must have known the spy because she traveled and he must have killed her". No proof of that but apparently, whatever? And the clues! Every time a clue comes by, it is practically highlighted and then re-highlighted in case you missed it.
And Peter doesn't even show up until page 250! And when he does, he is still asking far too many questions that he should be able to easily figure out. The first 2/3 of the book is all the Harriet Show and she wanders about, asking people questions once about the murder and not following anything up. It's like everyone in these books lost 5 points of intelligence from Sayers' versions.

2 stars. 1 because no matter how many blunders are made, it's still Lord Peter, it's still Harriet and it's still Bunter and they are still great characters. And 1 star because the setting and details about WWII are very interesting.

samirakatherine's review against another edition

3.0

Not as good as the original Dorothy L. Sayers, but you still get a sense of the characters--it is just that Sayers continued to develop her characters and Patton Walsh seems to be keeping the characters set as Sayers left them and is going through the motions of moving them through stories.

giddypony's review against another edition

2.0

Anachronistic language, unlikeliness abounds, and it is clear the author really wanted to write a book about family life during WWII. She tells, rather than shows.