Wimsey returns from holidaying in Corsica to discover that his brother the Duke of Denver has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a house guest who had been engaged to Wimsey's sister Lady Mary. Wimsey is assisted in his investigation by Mr Parker from Scotland Yard who becomes increasingly infatuated with Lady Mary.
A classic murder mystery full of excitement (Wimsey gets shot at one stage ; the trial of the Duke is in the House of Lords).
It was written and set in 1926 and contains some delightful pointers to those far-off days:
- Wimsey undertakes a dangerous flight across the Atlantic in chapter 15 only seven years after Alcock and Brown's first non-stop transatlantic flight and one year before Lindbergh's solo triumph
- There is a radio forecast broadcast on '2LO' the earliest callsign of the BBC (C 15)
- There is a reference to the "exhilarating properties" of "Indian hemp": cannabis was banned in the UK in 1928 (C 4)
- The phrase "broad awake" is used; it is nowadays more normally 'wide awake' (C 1)
One of the difficulties with DLS is that she was so very clever and tended to expect knowledge in others:
- One of the keys which helps Lord Peter solve the crime is that the victim had, amongst his bedroom reading, a copy of Manon Lescaut, a book I had not read at the time of reading this.
- There are lots of words in French, without translation, which regular readers of my blog know is one of my pet hates. The three page letter written in French is translated, fortunately!
- Even Mr Parker, educated at Barrow-in-Furness grammar school, knows theology. He tells Lord |Peter at one point: "There are many difficulties inherent in a teleological view of creation." (C 3)
Key moments:
- The first chapter, which sets out the initiating murder, takes up the first 10% of the book. Jane Smiley in 13 ways of looking at a novel states that a novel's thesis must be set out in the first 10%.
- Lord Peter is shot at almost exactly the 50% part; this is the key turning point of the book.
- Another key moment, a key alibi, arrives almost exactly at the 75% mark. At this point we are left with no suspects. But in another few pages Lord Peter has solved the mystery.
- Jane Smiley in 13 ways of looking at a novel says that the climax should come at the 90% mark. This is more or less the moment when the key piece of evidence is read out at Denver's trial.
Other good lines:
"When you flatly deny everything a person says it does sound like contradiction to the uninitiated." (C 9)
September 2019; 299 pages
I have set myself the task of reading all the Lord Peter Wimsey novels (mostly again) in order. The ones I have read and reviewed in this blog so far include:
- Whose Body in which my Lord and his manservant are introduced
- Clouds of Witness in which Lord Peter must sleuth to get his brother Gerald, Duke of Denver, off a murder charge
- Unnatural Death which introduces another Wimsey sidekick: Miss Climpson
- The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
- Strong Poison which introduces Harriet Vane, a detective writer who becomes Lord Peter's love interest
- The Five Red Herrings; Lord Peter in Scotland
- Have His Carcase: Harriet and Peter investigate the death of a gigolo with dreams
There are also Wimsey books written since the death of DLS by Jill Paton Walsh. These include:
- The Attenbury Emeralds in which Lord Peter, in 1951, recalls the circumstances of his first case, the Attenbury Emeralds, which have gone missing again.
- The Late Scholar: in which Wimsey returns to Oxford
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