On the Coffee Table: Unnatural Death

Title: Unnatural Death

Author: Dorothy L. Sayers

via Target

Lord Peter Wimsey is back for more adventures.  While out to dinner one night with his friend Charles Parker, a police inspector, Wimsey learns the details of a mysterious death from a doctor at a nearby table.  While the demise was attributed to natural causes, our man isn't convinced.  So begins an unlikely murder investigation based on close to zero evidence.

As I have written before, Wimsey is a cross between Doyle's Sherlock Holmes and Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster and per usual, the text references both characters.  Fortunately for all of the other principals involved, Wimsey is more grounded than either and his world more earth-bound.  A Sayers mystery is different in that the author is a procedure nerd: medical, legal, whatever.  And the question of who? is less crucial than how? to this particular story.  Wimsey's logic in even pursuing the case is largely philosophical:

...if you read all the books on this shelf, you'd come to the conclusion that murder was a failure.  But bless you, it's always the failures that make the noise.  Successful murderers don't write to the papers about it.  They don't even join in imbecile symposia to tell an inquisitive world "What Murder means to me" or "How I became a Successful Poisoner."  Happy murderers, like happy wives, keep quiet tongues.

Following this logic, it is the very tidiness of the crime which leads Whimsey to suspect.

A new character is introduced to the series: Miss Katherine Climpson.  A seemingly harmless "spinster," Lord Peter employs her as an undercover investigator, drawing on her powers as an expert gossip.  Sayers is often credited as being the first mystery writer to promote feminist ideas in her work.  Climpson is her first, though not her last, character to get directly involved in the detective work.  Sayers herself was, of course, a victim of the professional limitations placed upon women of her era.  No doubt such characters were meaningful vehicles for expressing her views.  

The book was published in the 1920s, not an era known for enlightened thinking in regards to race or religion.  Several highly questionable remarks are made regarding both Jews and Catholics (Miss Climpson is Catholic).  Far worse is the language regarding Black people.

Interestingly, it's never Lord Peter himself making these comments.  Indeed, Sayers paints him as more tolerant than those around him.

Overall, the book is great fun.  When not offensive, it's quite funny, especially given the dark topic.  Sayers's unusual approach is refreshing.  I look forward to reading more.