Product Description

The bed was broken and tilted grotesquely sideways. Harrison was sprawled over in a huddle of soiled blankets. His mouth was twisted . . .

Harrison had been an expert on deadly mushrooms. How was it then that he had eaten a large quantity of death-dealing muscarine? Was it an accident? Suicide? Or murder?

The documents in the case seemed to be a simple collection of love notes and letters home. But they concealed a clue to the brilliant murderer who baffled the best minds in London.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #70686 in Books
• Published on: 1984-12-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 272 pages

Ruth Rendell
‘I admire her novels . . . she has great fertility of invention, ingenuity and a wonderful eye for detail'

Review
‘She brought to the detective novel originality, intelligence, energy and wit.’ (P. D. James )

‘I admire her novels . . . she has great fertility of invention, ingenuity and a wonderful eye for detail’ (Ruth Rendell )

‘D. L. Sayers is one of the best detective story writers.’ (E. C. Bentley, Daily Telegraph )

E. C. Bentley, Daily Telegraph
‘D. L. Sayers is one of the best detective story writers.'

Customer Reviews

Not a Lord Peter Whimsy novel but excellent all the same
Is this the only Sayers mystery novel not to showcase Lord Peter? I'm not sure but it marks a whole other direction that Sayers could have taken in her writing.

Made up of 'the documents in the case': primarily letters, reports and a couple of witness statements, there is no overall narrator who pulls the whole story together and yet the reader is intriguingly drawn into not just the murder but the lives, inner and outer, of the characters involved.

Very much of it's time, this gives an intriguing view of London in the 30s when artists were still Bohemian and therefore morally suspicious, when the whole-food/healthfood/natural food thing was just absurd and ridiculous, and when there was a huge intellectual ferment over quantum theory/chaos theory and what that means for relion and life. I'm making this sound incredibly intellectual and dull but trust me it isn't: these themes are woven very skillfully into the narrative, but this is fundamentally a story of the clash of people and the resulting murder.

The characters were well drawn, if stereotypical: the slightly mad spinster with an obsession with sex, the modern young novelist with his intellectual theories, the beautiful but dumb wife married to an engineer much older than her, the morally dubious but brilliant artist... and yet while we read the book we believe in these people.

If you want a slap-bang murder on page 1 with lots of blood and gore, then this probably isn't the book for you; but if you want a light, yet entertaining read, with an ingenious murder at the heart of it, then I recommend this.

A departure from the usual Sayer's books but still excellent
This book presents a series of documents relating to a suspicious death. The documents take the form of letters, medical reports, newspaper headlines, etc. The format gives less room for the witty conversational style of other novels by Dorothy L. Sayers, but I believe this is one of her best.

Very cleverly done
Not Wimsey, but just as good. A really clever way to pull together a murder mystery, using letters and staements to see different views of the same action. Obvious almost from the outset whodunnit, but the journey to prove it is very interesting. And the science-y bits are an intelligent change from the pure emotion of some thrillers.