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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
dark
mysterious
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
"Murder's so easy, Charles, so damned easy—even without special training."
"I would not recommend a bowler, my lord. The anxiety expressed in a bowler hat would be rather of the financial kind."
"Now it is easy to be mistake in faces, but almost impossible not to recognise a back."
"It's a silly kind of face, of course, but rather disarming, don't you think? I don't know that I'd have chosen it, but I do my best with it. I do hope it isn't contracting a sleuth-like expression, or anything unpleasant. This is the real sleuth—my friend Detective-Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard. He's the one who really does the work. I make imbecile suggestions and he does the work of elaborately disproving them. Then, by a process of elimination, we find the right explanation, and the world says, 'My god, what intuition that young man has!'"
"Miss Climpson," said Lord Peter, "is a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run. Look at electricity. Look at water-power. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions, where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community, while the ratepayers' money is spent on getting work for which these women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by ill-equipped policeman like you."
"There's such a sinister charm, don't you think, about lawyers who appear unexpectedly with little bags, and alarm people with mysterious conferences, and then go away leaving urgent messages that if anything happens they are to be sent for."
"Read any newspaper today....Wouldn't they give you the idea that marriage is a failure? Isn't the sillier sort of journalism packed with articles to the same effect? And yet, looking round among the marriages you know of personally, aren't the majority of them a success, in a humdrum, undemonstrative sort of way? Only you don't hear of them. People don't bother to come into court and explain that they dodder along very comfortably on the whole, thank you. Similarly, if you read all the books on this shelf, you'd come to the conclusion that murder was a failure. But bless you, it's always the failures that make the noise. Successful murderers don't write to the papers about it. They don't even join an imbecile symposia to tell an inquisitive world 'What Murder means to me,' or 'How I became a Successful Poisoner.' Happy murderers, like happy wives, keep quiet tongues."
"I would not recommend a bowler, my lord. The anxiety expressed in a bowler hat would be rather of the financial kind."
"Now it is easy to be mistake in faces, but almost impossible not to recognise a back."
"It's a silly kind of face, of course, but rather disarming, don't you think? I don't know that I'd have chosen it, but I do my best with it. I do hope it isn't contracting a sleuth-like expression, or anything unpleasant. This is the real sleuth—my friend Detective-Inspector Parker of Scotland Yard. He's the one who really does the work. I make imbecile suggestions and he does the work of elaborately disproving them. Then, by a process of elimination, we find the right explanation, and the world says, 'My god, what intuition that young man has!'"
"Miss Climpson," said Lord Peter, "is a manifestation of the wasteful way in which this country is run. Look at electricity. Look at water-power. Look at the tides. Look at the sun. Millions of power units being given off into space every minute. Thousands of old maids, simply bursting with useful energy, forced by our stupid social system into hydros and hotels and communities and hostels and posts as companions, where their magnificent gossip-powers and units of inquisitiveness are allowed to dissipate themselves or even become harmful to the community, while the ratepayers' money is spent on getting work for which these women are providentially fitted, inefficiently carried out by ill-equipped policeman like you."
"There's such a sinister charm, don't you think, about lawyers who appear unexpectedly with little bags, and alarm people with mysterious conferences, and then go away leaving urgent messages that if anything happens they are to be sent for."
"Read any newspaper today....Wouldn't they give you the idea that marriage is a failure? Isn't the sillier sort of journalism packed with articles to the same effect? And yet, looking round among the marriages you know of personally, aren't the majority of them a success, in a humdrum, undemonstrative sort of way? Only you don't hear of them. People don't bother to come into court and explain that they dodder along very comfortably on the whole, thank you. Similarly, if you read all the books on this shelf, you'd come to the conclusion that murder was a failure. But bless you, it's always the failures that make the noise. Successful murderers don't write to the papers about it. They don't even join an imbecile symposia to tell an inquisitive world 'What Murder means to me,' or 'How I became a Successful Poisoner.' Happy murderers, like happy wives, keep quiet tongues."
Läs min recension på bloggen: https://www.fiktiviteter.se/2023/05/23/unnatural-death-av-dorothy-sayers/
I loved the plot! One of the main characters ends up being something I hadn't thought of!
emotional
informative
mysterious
relaxing
tense
medium-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
Plot
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Complicated
Diverse cast of characters:
Complicated
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated
On the plus side, this mystery introduces Miss Climpson, Sayers’s version of Miss Marple who turns up occasionally in subsequent books for undercover assignments Lord Peter can’t believably do. She’s fine. The mystery itself is a bit drawn out and convoluted and possibly unrealistic (?) but the main, unfortunate, weak point of this novel is a plot point that, while not specifically based on racism, allows several characters to reveal racist views that, while probably typical of the historical era, are still ugly.
Content Warnings
Minor: Racial slurs, Racism, Sexism, Lesbophobia, Toxic friendship, Injury/Injury detail
I remember how much this story chilled me when I first read it as a teenager. It's a clever mystery and a good showcase for Lord Peter's sensitive nature!
Representation pro: thinly veiled lesbian couple, even less thinly-veiled young lesbian with a crush and possible older lesbian who’s not a nice person
Representation con: Hideous outdated Black stereotypes, especially concerning white women. The main characters don’t subscribe to these stereotypes but they don’t entirely repudiate them either, and even their attitudes are paternal.
Representation pro: thinly veiled lesbian couple, even less thinly-veiled young lesbian with a crush and possible older lesbian who’s not a nice person
Representation con: Hideous outdated Black stereotypes, especially concerning white women. The main characters don’t subscribe to these stereotypes but they don’t entirely repudiate them either, and even their attitudes are paternal.
This is a diverting read with some racist language towards the end. Granted, the racism was tangential to the main plot but it was shocking to modern eyes nonetheless. I will keep Lord Peter stories but I will brace for more upsetting language as a possibility.
Review of the Harper Paperback edition (2014) of the 1927 original