Unnatural Death

Lord Peter Wimsey, the sleuth in this third novel of Dorothy Sayers' detective series, wants to investigate what he calls the perfect murder--one without evidence or motive. He is intrigued by all the successful crimes, ones that are not discovered by police. In this case Lord Peter has to pursue his investigation for quite a while before his friend and colleague Detective Parker believes there is a case to investigate. Lord Peter has the assistance of an associate, Miss Climpson, an elderly spinster who has natural sleuthing talent and has the advantage that no-one suspects her of being anything more than a busybody. In the process of investigating they come across a diabolical plot and both Lord Peter and Miss Climpson are in danger. The Lord Peter mysteries are satisfying and comfy. They give a glimpse into another era, the 1920's. Lord Peter is an appealing character; a man with urbane charm and wit and with a keen analytical mind, particularly when it comes to detective work. He has an achilles heel--he fought in WWI and was buried for a long time in a fox hole after an explosion. When under stress he has nightmares and flashbacks. Interspersed with his detective work, Lord Peter participates in the social life of a peer. He often dines at the Savoy and pursues his hobby of researching and purchasing antiquarian books. An endearing and satisfying detective series!

I turned to Dorothy L. after exhausting most of Agatha Christie's works (yes, she wrote about eighty novels and plays, and I've read the majority of the novels, primarily the Poirot and Marple tales, as they are my favorites). I was pleased by Sayers's methodical and thourough spinning of a detective story, as well as the charm and wit of her hero, Lord Peter Wimsey.Unnatural Death has become one of my favorite Wimsey tales. It has the suspense and threat of danger that some of her other books lack. Wimsey and Parker's unravelling of an intricately woven plan of crime is really a literary feat. If you felt that suspense and chills were lacking in some of the other Sayers tales, give this one a shot. I will grant you, it takes a little while to dig into this story before it really gets going, but it is well worth the effort!

Dr. Carr, who had been forced to give up his practice for believing the death of Agatha Dawson to be murder despite the absence of any cause other than natural causes, told his story to Lord Peter Wimsey and Chief Inspector Parker (who is erroneously called `sir' by a Superintendent). While Parker remained unconvinced, Wimsey believed that he had found "the case [he had] always been looking for. The case of cases. The murder without discernible means, or motives or clue. The norm"-for he believed that there were far more unsuspected murders than the "failures" known to Scotland Yard. There was no evidence to suggest how Miss Dawson could have died other than from natural causes-yet all the clues pointed to murder having been done. For example, there was the death of Miss Dawson's maid, Bertha Gotobed, also of natural causes-yet the presence of an empty bottle of beer, the absence of a bottle-opener, and the presence of highly expensive ham, discovered in a Baileyesque investigation, all indicated that somebody else had been on the scene. And Bertha Gotobed's sister, Mrs. Cropper, returning from Canada, saw Miss Dawson's great-niece Mary Whittaker waiting for her at the train station. Mary Whittaker, who stood to gain if she killed her great-aunt before the New Property Act was passed, struck Wimsey as the main suspect-and this is one of Sayers' books, like WHOSE BODY? and STRONG POISON, where the villain's identity is obvious from the start, allowing Sayers to create a memorable portrait of evil, for "when a woman is wicked and unscrupulous, she is the most ruthless criminal in the world-fifty times more than a man, because she is always so much more single-minded about it." Wimsey sends Miss Climpson-who is his "ears and [his] tongue, and especially [his] nose. She asks questions which a young man could not put without a blush. She is the angel that rushes in where fools get a clump on the head. She can smell a rat in the dark. In fact, she is the cat's whiskers"-to Hampshire to sleuth, a prototype Miss Marple.

This one did it for me.Dorothy Sayers had such a brilliant mind, to dream up this one. There is a brooding and tense atmosphere to this novel that is unrelenting and in every sense horrifying. You get the feeling that your worst thoughts about what is happening are actually being confirmed. Wimsey certainly finds himself in some very eerie territory here.The characters, the plot, the tension, the humor and the pace are all fabulous.What more can I say. Pick it up right NOW!

I found this book to be probably the best of all of Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. The plotting is tight and all the threads are pulled together for the reader. A nice touch is that neither Lord Peter nor Parker are superhuman detectives who miraculously discern the truth at every step. Instead, they are allowed to make mistakes and even be a bit slow sometimes in getting to the truth, which makes them completely believeable. But the best part of the book was the great atmosphere - Ms Sayers brings 1920's England vividly to life so much so you feel you are actually there. I liked the way the story shifts back and forth between London and the countryside. Also, what fun to be introduced to Mr. Murbles and Miss Climpson - surely some of the most entertaining characters ever created in detective fiction! I read all the mysteries written subsequently and was a little disappointed that their characters are not more fully developed in later books - both appear in other novels but not to the extent I would have wished. All in all, it's an unputdownable mystery - try it and you will be hooked!