There are some rough edges, to be sure (the odd temporary shifts into second person perspective leap to mind), but they are ultimately very forgivable in a first novel and almost seem charming in light of the later works.

And early-'20s England is painted beautifully-which is not entirely surprising, given that the book was written in, erm, early-'20s England. Meanwhile, a financial bigwig's gone missing, and while he bears a superficial likeness to the corpse found across town, they are clearly not one and the same.īut as satisfying as the cases are, more satisfying by far is the chance to meet Lord Peter as he babbles foolishly in the way only the very rich can get away with, picking apart the mysteries while quoting poetry in between snifters of Napoleon brandy and bidding on early editions of Dante. He has no idea who the man might be or how he came to be dead in his tub. The actual mystery is brilliant: a man goes into his bathroom one morning to find a naked corpse in the tub, wearing nothing but a pair of golden pince-nez. (Curiously, this is only the first of no fewer than three completely random and incidental mentions in this volume of that particular cheese. There is so much that I love about this book, including the very first page its first two words, and indeed the first two words Wimsey ever utters to us, are 'Oh, damn!' Just a few lines down is the sentence that encapsulates so much about Sayers's writing, the perfect litmus test for the Lord Peter series: 'His long, amiable face looked as if it had generated spontaneously from his top hat, as white maggots breed from Gorgonzola.' Either you find that quirkily poetic and want to read more, or you should be reading something else entirely. In rereading this, I found myself surprised at how solid the characters are at the very beginning of the series they are essentially the same fully-realized people they are ten books later, though we only see certain facets of them here. Actually, make that at least two (since Bunter is equally astounding), and maybe three (because the Dowager's quite engaging, too).

The very first Lord Peter Wimsey novel, and thus the genesis of one of the most engaging characters I've ever encountered, literary or otherwise.

First peter wimsey novel