A review by sireno8
The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers

5.0

Being a mystery lover, I'd heard about this book forever but had never gotten around to reading it. A fellow mystery lover lent it to me raving about it but when I finally sat down to read it, I had real trouble getting through the first chapter. So I set it aside. This weekend, months after the loan, I took it out of town with me thinking I'd be in a more relaxed state of mind and be able to plow through it. Again, I had trouble w/ the first chapter. But I kept going and I'm so thankful I did. I totally know why this book is considered a classic of the genre. The characters, the setting and the plotting are all so richly and colorfully drawn. I had gotten tangled in the first part of the book b/c it was all setting and bell technology and nothing happening. Well, all that came back to pay off in spades. How the complexity of the puzzle bubbling under the surface of this sleepy English village morphs into a classic whodunnit is amazing. The depth of the detail in every aspect of the story sets you firmly into world of it. And the solution is almost mystically satisfying, especially when recalling the opening portion of the book. Not only a classic of the genre but a object lesson in how to write a novel. Wow.