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3.77 AVERAGE
3.77 AVERAGE
Have been reading this series chronologically and this one is the best so far
I think I’m getting to know Sayers as an author — there’s something interestingly grim shaping all these mysteries, a refusal to let the puzzle be all good clean fun. It makes me less inclined to guzzle them down but also intrigued to know where they go in the long run. I’m already starting to get to know and become fond of some of the secondary cast.
I actually guessed part of the solution to this mystery! Still, a great read!!!!
The murder method and the mystery of Mrs Forrest were too predictable this time but the characters (especially Parker and Miss Climpson) more than made up for it. Looks like I'll have to get the next batch of Lord Peter books sooner than I thought~
Library.
Excellent. Fun to determine whether a crime was committed and the motive and means. Interesting to consider the slow death of a person and the slow death of society.
Excellent. Fun to determine whether a crime was committed and the motive and means. Interesting to consider the slow death of a person and the slow death of society.
Sayers is a perennial favorite, and the Ian Carmichael-narrated audiobook was a damn delight. Exactly the right level of clever dialogue and plot twists to soothe my pandemic-exhausted, finals-focussed brain when I'm doing the dishes in the evening. Highly recommend, as always.
Not quite sure what I just read. There is a classic crime/detective story in there but the racism subplot was unnecessary, and a lot of the book seems to be dedicated to the apparently difficult question of why God made lesbians (because they’re good for society, better than men and generally a good example). Oh and religious bits ranging from snobbery (only good Anglo-Catholics appreciate a good lesbian apparently) to completely out of nowhere antisemitism. And the subplot about the distant cousin/Caribbean origin priest was almost completely unnecessary.
I will definitely not be rereading, I’m just deciding whether I think it’s worth putting back out there for someone else to read.
I will definitely not be rereading, I’m just deciding whether I think it’s worth putting back out there for someone else to read.
It's sometimes hard to rate these old books since accepted writing styles differ so much over the years. And I come into books written in the 1920s expecting a certain amount of casual racism. For a while I thought this book was doing pretty good compared to others until mid point and then BAM. It wasn't even casual racism. It was in your face over the top racism to the point that the other characters in the 1920s are going WOW she's racist. Of course in their attempts to explain her racism as bad were pretty racist in and of themselves. The super racist off screen character (as this is being related third hand) was a servant who didn't want a Black man in her house because his mere presence would make it dirty. He was a priest btw (and literally the day after reading it I saw a GOP candidate saying the exact same thing about refugees from Afghanistan so we haven't come far in a century. Sigh).
That aside, this is very overwritten and slow. (at one point one character spends six pages agonizing over should she give a clue to Lord Wimsey or not, a clue that would crack the case, or should she burn it because she found it in a church and it wouldn't be right to read the postcard. A line or two would have been fine. SIX pages and this happens repeatedly droning on and on about nothing). This would have been better a novella or a screenplay or at least severely edited.
It opens with Peter meeting a doctor at a club and the man tells him about being driven out of town by daring to do an autopsy on an old woman dying of cancer who he thinks died prematurely leaving everything to her great niece Miss Whittaker. Miss Dawson shouldn't have died so soon he thinks but the town sides with the niece especially after his autopsy finds nothing. Peter believes him (while his police buddy Parker does not). Some of the things the niece did prior to her aunt's death does seem shady.
People inside the house at the time have also come to unusual ends and then we have an inheritance act that would take affect in 1926 that might disinherit the niece if the aunt doesn't make a will (and she won't) so Auntie must die in 1925 which surprise, she does.
So the idea behind the mystery is a good one and if this had been a little shorter and tighter it would have worked better. Much of the information is given to Peter via letters from his spy Miss Climson who capitalized and italicizes words at random to the point of madness. I was amused that one of my least favorite murder tropes of TV cop shows (because it's rarely done right) was the murder weapon here so a century of this tired old chestnut. At least it was new when Sayers did it.
Had this been my first Wimsey book it probably would have been my last.
That aside, this is very overwritten and slow. (at one point one character spends six pages agonizing over should she give a clue to Lord Wimsey or not, a clue that would crack the case, or should she burn it because she found it in a church and it wouldn't be right to read the postcard. A line or two would have been fine. SIX pages and this happens repeatedly droning on and on about nothing). This would have been better a novella or a screenplay or at least severely edited.
It opens with Peter meeting a doctor at a club and the man tells him about being driven out of town by daring to do an autopsy on an old woman dying of cancer who he thinks died prematurely leaving everything to her great niece Miss Whittaker. Miss Dawson shouldn't have died so soon he thinks but the town sides with the niece especially after his autopsy finds nothing. Peter believes him (while his police buddy Parker does not). Some of the things the niece did prior to her aunt's death does seem shady.
People inside the house at the time have also come to unusual ends and then we have an inheritance act that would take affect in 1926 that might disinherit the niece if the aunt doesn't make a will (and she won't) so Auntie must die in 1925 which surprise, she does.
So the idea behind the mystery is a good one and if this had been a little shorter and tighter it would have worked better. Much of the information is given to Peter via letters from his spy Miss Climson who capitalized and italicizes words at random to the point of madness. I was amused that one of my least favorite murder tropes of TV cop shows (because it's rarely done right) was the murder weapon here so a century of this tired old chestnut. At least it was new when Sayers did it.
Had this been my first Wimsey book it probably would have been my last.
I liked Miss Climpson. I hope we see more of her in future books.