::READERS REVIEWS::

Tedium in time - A puzzling murder where the time of death is crucial. Unfortunately most of the novel is wasted effort. If you don't mind being led down a garden path and then having a cream pie thrown in your face, you'll love this. I hated it.

Brilliant, funny, and intelligent mystery - I am in the process of reading this book for the third time, and find it absolutely delightful. Like all of Dorothy L Sayers' books, it is highly intelligent and very well written. Sayers has an uncanny insight into human psychology and also has a wonderful way of characterizing her characters -- even minor characters come across as intriguing and realistic. Sayers clearly did a lot of research for all her novels, and the amount of detail she packs into the descriptions makes the places and persons all the more engaging and the reader's experience all the more rewarding.

What sets this book apart from the rest, however, is that it is here that we see the relationship between Sayers' indomitable sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, and the young woman he saved from the gallows in Strong Poison, the amusing contrary Harriet Vane, develop and blossom into the first stages of a real love story. Although the focus is on the mystery, the Wimsey-Vane storyline is much more than a subplot. It runs through the novel and ultimately becomes just as important as the case they are working on. In Gaudy Night, one of Sayers' masterpieces in my opinion, the love story takes center stage and it is the mystery that becomes the backdrop for its unfolding.

For those who prefer mysteries to romances, however, there is nothing overly sentimental or "romancy" in the unfolding of Wimsey's and Vane's relationship. What the relationship gives Sayers is an opportunity to really gaze deeper into aspects of human psychology, and her writing is spot on. Lord Peter especially becomes a much more human character as he struggles to build a fragile relationship with Harriet, whose bruised past makes her especially prickly and sensitive to his advances.

I heartily recommend this book to all. If you get a chance to see the PBS/WGBH televised series, it is also a treat!

You should have checked your facts, Dorothy... - The book is a nice, though a bit longish, detective story - it's about detecting a crime that was imposssible to be committed in the first place, and about Harriet Vane's and Lord Peter Wimsey's rather unpromising, but interesting, romance.
And it's howlingly funny at parts. Unfortunately, not the parts that the writer intended to be funny.
For a writer who always was so painstakingly correct about timetibles, technicalities etc, Ms Sayers had made an astounding mess with her facts.
The victim is a Russian - and Pavlo is his name. Sorry, Dorothy, had he been a Russian, his name would have been Pavel or Paul, given that we're supposed to be talking about Russian aristocracy. Pavlo is an Ukrainian name. It tantamount to calling a character Pierre and insisting he's an Englishman.
Also, if one insists on the poor victim receiving letters with Czechoslovakian stamps, one should not make the evil-doers send them from Warsaw. Polish stamps would surely be better.
Thirdly, it doesn't do to make seemingly intelligent characters speculate that an illness which can be inherited only through female ancestors could have been a proof positive that the sufferer is a descendant of a specified man... not after the female-line business was thoroughly explained in a previous paragraph, anyway.
And, top of the tops, there comes a scene when the good British jurors are not too slighly ridiculed for thinking in cliches about the foreigners... Pavlo the Russian, letters from the capital of Poland with Czechoslovakian stamps on them - Dorothy Leigh Sayers, you've made my day!

Second story in the Harriet Vane series - My first encounter with Dorothy L. Sayers was the Mobile Mystery Theater series showing on PBS. I now have all three DVD's of the series ("Strong Poison", "Gaudy Night" and "Have His Carcase".) They never produced "Busman's Honeymoon" Dorothy sold the rights to Hollywood and BBC could not get them back. The Resulting movie is "Haunted Honeymoon"(1940)
Naturally the TV media cannot fill in all the details that you would pick up from reading the book.

So I read the book. This added more depth to the story, now I appreciate Dorothy L. Sayers more than Agatha Christie. Dorothy not only fleshes her characters out better but her side trips into philosophy and psychology make the story that much more interesting. And just when you say what is the relevance to this conversation it is wrapped up in the final solution.

This is the second of the book series. The story is complete and can be used as a stand-alone story. The notorious Harriet Vane is out for a walk and takes a nap. She wakes up and finds (you guest it) a body. If not for her trusty camera, no one would believe her. As it is the authorities think it was suicide. Wimsey thinks it is murder. Naturally everyone, especially the main suspect has an airtight alibi. The real interest is the interaction between Lord Peter and Harriet.

Strong Poison

A Detestable Burden of Gratitude - Carcase is a variant spelling of carcass. To be tried for murder is good publicity for a crime writer. Harriet Vane was busy.

In June Harriet went on a walking tour. On a beach she discovered a corpse. The tide was coming in. She was eight miles from Wilvercombe. Harriet took pictures of the discovery, of particular interest since the body was liable to be carried away on the tide. After walking six miles she called the police and the newspapers to report the existence of the dead body.

Lord Peter arrived to meet Harriet at her hotel, much to her surprise. A journalist had rung him up, it seems. The dead man had been a professional dancing partner, a police inspector told Harriet and Peter. A Mrs. Weldon, friend of the deceased man, sought Harriet's company. She claimed she and the decedent were to be married.

The murder weapon was an Endicott razor with an ivory handle. Wimsey learned from a Mr. Endicott that ivory-handled ones were in short supply. The notion that a bearded man had in his possession an old-fashioned razor of good quality presented a problem.

When the body came to shore there was an inquest, and the investigation of shifting identities began. As in real life, the story thread meanders.

The most interesting aspect of this book is the relationship of Hariet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey and the author's philosophy of female independence in which their relationship is cast.

Good until the ending ruined it - I was quite enjoying this lengthy book - both the mystery itself and the Vane/Wimsey interactions - right up to the last page or so when the abrupt, vague, disappointing, and out of character ending left me completely flat. It's almost as if the author got tired after 448 pages and just wanted to finish the story ASAP. I don't want to spoil it for anyone, so I'll leave it at that except to reassure that the mystery itself is solved; it's the *resolution* that's lacking.

I've been reading the Lord Peter Wimsey stories in chronological order (and would rate nearly all of them so far as 4+ Stars). That's a good thing, because if this book had been my first Wimsey book, I'm not sure I would have read any further.

Second story in the Harriet Vane series - My first encounter with Dorothy L. Sayers was the Mobile Mystery Theater series showing on PBS. I now have all three DVD's of the series ("Strong Poison", "Gaudy Night" and "Have His Carcase".) They never produced "Busman's Honeymoon" Dorothy sold the rights to Hollywood and BBC could not get them back. The Resulting movie is "Haunted Honeymoon"(1940)
Naturally the TV media cannot fill in all the details that you would pick up from reading the book.

So I read the book. This added more depth to the story, now I appreciate Dorothy L. Sayers more than Agatha Christie. Dorothy not only fleshes her characters out better but her side trips into philosophy and psychology make the story that much more interesting. And just when you say what is the relevance to this conversation it is wrapped up in the final solution.

This is the second of the book series. The story is complete and can be used as a stand-alone story. The notorious Harriet Vane is out for a walk and takes a nap. She wakes up and finds (you guest it) a body. If not for her trusty camera, no one would believe her. As it is the authorities think it was suicide. Wimsey thinks it is murder. Naturally everyone, especially the main suspect has an airtight alibi. The real interest is the interaction between Lord Peter and Harriet.


Strong Poison