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SensualPoet · 07-05-2011, 10:51 PM

In 1923, Dorothy L Sayers decided to try her hand at writing detective fiction, inspired by Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and the early stories of Agatha Christie. She created one of detective fiction's most memorable characters, Lord Peter Wimsey who, in the early 1920s is almost a man of another age. Flush with cash and prestige, he is the consummate dilettante amateur detective, butting into police investigations, lending them hand with his keen sense of observation and his family's access to the upper crust. In Whose Body?, the body's in the bathtub, not the library.

When a naked middle-aged man's body is found in the bath of an architect -- sporting only a golden pair of pince-nez -- Lord Peter Wimsey's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, alerts her son; the architect Thipps, who has been doing some work for the Duchess, is all in a tizzy. Scotland Yard Inspector Suggs is on the case and soon arrests Thipps and his housekeeper, leaving Thipps aging, deaf mother, alone in the flat. A quick survey of the scene convinces Wimsey there is more to the story than Suggs will ever bother to uncover and so ... the game's afoot! Before long, a second body goes missing, and some shady trading of Peruvian oil shares slips into the mix, as does surgeon Sir Julian Freke, who just happens to live next door, with a teaching hospital beside them. With Bunter, Wimsey's manservant to assist, and working alongside the very competent Inspector Parker who is on another case that might be related, it's not long before the pieces begin to fall into place. So whose body was it in the bath?

Happily, this work is in the public domain and, in Canada and other countries following the "author's death + 50 year" rule, so are all of Sayer's books, as she passed away in 1957 at just 64 years old. While Wimsey is a likeable character, the class privileges he enjoys are less easy to identify with. Helpfully, anyone who has enjoyed Ian Carmichael's BBC/PBS television creation of Wimsey will easily have his voice and dapper appearance in mind while enjoying the short journey through the novel. Light, engaging, and stylish, Sayer's delivers as good as her word: Wimsey really is a cross between Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster!

A very handsome edition can be found here at Mobileread in mobi or epub; commercial editions also available from Amazon and other vendors.

07-05-2011, 10:51 PM	#386
SensualPoet Wizard Posts: 2,302 Karma: 2607151 Join Date: Nov 2009 Location: Toronto Device: Kobo Aura HD, Kindle Paperwhite, Asus ZenPad 3, Kobo Glo	Dorothy L Sayers - Whose Body? In 1923, Dorothy L Sayers decided to try her hand at writing detective fiction, inspired by Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and the early stories of Agatha Christie. She created one of detective fiction's most memorable characters, Lord Peter Wimsey who, in the early 1920s is almost a man of another age. Flush with cash and prestige, he is the consummate dilettante amateur detective, butting into police investigations, lending them hand with his keen sense of observation and his family's access to the upper crust. In Whose Body?, the body's in the bathtub, not the library. When a naked middle-aged man's body is found in the bath of an architect -- sporting only a golden pair of pince-nez -- Lord Peter Wimsey's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, alerts her son; the architect Thipps, who has been doing some work for the Duchess, is all in a tizzy. Scotland Yard Inspector Suggs is on the case and soon arrests Thipps and his housekeeper, leaving Thipps aging, deaf mother, alone in the flat. A quick survey of the scene convinces Wimsey there is more to the story than Suggs will ever bother to uncover and so ... the game's afoot! Before long, a second body goes missing, and some shady trading of Peruvian oil shares slips into the mix, as does surgeon Sir Julian Freke, who just happens to live next door, with a teaching hospital beside them. With Bunter, Wimsey's manservant to assist, and working alongside the very competent Inspector Parker who is on another case that might be related, it's not long before the pieces begin to fall into place. So whose body was it in the bath? Happily, this work is in the public domain and, in Canada and other countries following the "author's death + 50 year" rule, so are all of Sayer's books, as she passed away in 1957 at just 64 years old. While Wimsey is a likeable character, the class privileges he enjoys are less easy to identify with. Helpfully, anyone who has enjoyed Ian Carmichael's BBC/PBS television creation of Wimsey will easily have his voice and dapper appearance in mind while enjoying the short journey through the novel. Light, engaging, and stylish, Sayer's delivers as good as her word: Wimsey really is a cross between Fred Astaire and Bertie Wooster! A very handsome edition can be found here at Mobileread in mobi or epub; commercial editions also available from Amazon and other vendors.