Classic mystery with a very complicated plot. ( )

Something smells fishy in Scotland; it may only be five red herrings, but it feels like there are twenty. Set in Scotland amid a colony of artists and leisured fishermen, Herrings deals with the murder of a disliked painter which is investigated by a rather perfunctory Lord Peter Wimsey. The titular Herrings are also painters; much hinges on convoluted descriptions of their movements and different time-tables repeated by different policemen, sometimes in an irritatingly transcribed Scottish accent. There are missing bicycles and errant husbands and lochs and keys, but it all seems to end up as a less than pretty kettle of fish.

Why, oh why do authors try to write the dialect of their characters into the novel. Just tell me he's a Highlander and go on printing his words in plain English. It hurts my eyes and really detracts from the story having to decode everything the characters say.

I thought this was one of the duller Sayers I've read. The mystery is undeniably much more complex and ingenious than in, say, Clouds of Witness (a sillier denouement I don't think I've ever read); but the mystery is also a slow and ponderous one to unravel. In some ways, even though more technically accomplished than Clouds of Witness, it was less fun to read, because I didn't find the supporting characters as entertaining, and because there really wasn't enough of Peter.

Large chunks of the text followed the activities of the police inspector and so on, and there wasn't enough of Peter for him to really develop as a character at all. If this had been the first Heyer I'd read, I don't think I would have continued on with the rest of the books. It's a competent mystery, but nothing special. Oh, and the way she spells out the Ayrshire accent phonetically is also irritating - it's bad enough when Hagrid does so in the HP books; here, it just seems patronising. ( )

As always, Sayers has conceived a witty, twisty mystery. In this case, a surly artist is murdered, and there are six suspects who have a motive and equally poor alibis. Five of them are red herrings, and one is the real murderer. Will Lord Peter get to the bottom of the mystery? Well, of course he will. The only thing I didn't really like about this in terms of the mystery is that Sayers very blatantly witholds an important clue, which makes the book a fun puzzle but does cause problems for the suspension of disbelief. Plus it annoys me when I, as the reader, don't have the benefit of all of the clues that the fictional detective has. Still, this was entertaining enough to rate 4/5, nonetheless. ( )