Catch up time

I have decided it is time to have a little catch up so am settling down for a mega session and promise not to leave this chair until I have done all the outstanding reviews!!... Well, I may get up to make myself a coffee but..... apart from that I am focused and ready to go.


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Whose Body - Dorothy L. Sayers
I had heard about Sayers and her books from several sources. She has been acclaimed as on of the best and first crime writers in England so I was looking forward to reading one of her books to see what she was like. I am afraid to say that I was a bit disappointed with this one. I did not like the main character at at, our dear Mr Wimsey comes across as a bit of a self indulgent guy who does a bit of interfering in police business and to just rock up at crime scenes wherever he wants without having to explain himself.  I didn't find him entertaining, intelligent or seemingly capable of catching anything more than a cold. To be honest I found his butler a more interesting character. At least he had some personality and did some actual work to solve the case. I am not sure if it was his speech in the book as well. From reading the way he speaks it it seems that he is dropping-his-aitches all over the place and he seems to sounds more like a common criminal than a supposedly intelligent Lord... oh yeah.. did I forget to mention this... He is a Lord. I found it hard to reconcile the way he spoke with his position in society.
So, okay.. the story. There is a body that has turned up in the bath of a gentleman who is very obviously not the killer. Cue the incompetent policeman who jumps to the wrong conclusions, thinks the body is someone it isn't and arrests the wrong guy (and girl). From then on our Mr Wimsey is on the case to defend the innocent and get one over on the coppers and the chase is on to get the right bad guy. There are a few red herrings that are introduced but unfortunately for the story, the real killer (Dr Freke) is introduced in a way that you kind of know that he must the killer from the second time you feast your eyes on him. The timing of his introduction and the way he behaves sets off all your spider senses. Although he has been quite clever in the way he has gone about the murder it is not enough to compensate for having read through all the pages of Lord Peter Wimsey being his good, indulgent self. It all ends with a nice confession and the whole thing is wrapped up neatly.
There is some promise of interesting character development with Mr Wimsey as there are hints of some "troubles" he has had in the past and about how his choice of being a detective has come about but unfortunately none of it is developed in this one. He seems clever enough, just ab it annoying and self indulgent. I may have to try another one to see if this promise if fulfilled but I hope Mr Wimsey improves on further reading.


Title: Whose Body
Author: Dorothy L. Sayers
206 pages
New English Library/Hodder & Stoughton
ISBN# 978-0-450-03129-8