Hangman's Holiday (edition 1995)

This collection of 12 short stories, predominantly featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Montague Egg, are a gentle introduction to Ms. Sayers’ writing. Each is neatly self-contained and the answer revealed in a gentlemanly flourish without arrogance (such as that of M. Poirot).

I’ve not read any Sayers before, but after Alex was raving about a Wimsey mystery, this little collection was just right. The short stories are a bit shorter (12 in 256 pages) than the set of Christie short stories I reviewed, and that may be why I enjoyed them more; the writing had to be tighter.

Wimsey and Egg are both excellent detective characters with their own foibles and idiosyncrasies without being isolating or offputting. I’m a particular fan of Egg’s little rhymes from The Salesman’s Handbook.

The stories did occasionally tend to the darker side which was less to my taste, but others may prefer it as a little less cozy and cloying than many of this style.

A great collection and I will be looking out for more. ( )

A collection of short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Montagu Egg. They're quite a fun read, even if some of the stories are slighty surreal and they don’t bring anything new to the Wimsey story. ( )

First reviewed on booksonboard.com
Version ebook bought from www.booksonboard.com
Genre tags mystery

This ebook contains short stories written by Dorothy L. Sayers. Lord Peter Wimsey is the detective in four of stories, while the lesser known Montague Egg is the detective in six stories, and the last two stories are stand alone stories written from the point of view of the murderer.

The first two stories had intriguing solutions which led me to look up the medical conditions described, just to check. The other stories depended more on careful observation and bright ideas of the detectives. The Montague Egg stories are more humorous than the Wimsey stories, while the two stand alone stories have a very dark sense of humour, which quite surprised me.

Although I enjoyed all the stories in this book, I do think the Montague Egg stories and the two stand alone stories worked better as short stories. The main interest of the Wimsey stories was as additions to what we know of him from the novels. ( )

Four Peter Wimsey stories, including the frankly barking 'The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey' in which Wimsey turns up in Basque country pretending to be a magician, six Montague Egg stories ('Maher-shalal-hashbaz' is not recommended for cat lovers; and, again, who nowadays would consider that as a name for a cat?), and two standalones. Not as good as the Wimsey novels, but a decent, quick read. ( )

Sayers gives us a dozen short mysteries: four featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, six featuring effervescent salesman Montague Egg, and two others. The Wimsey stories were the best for me, because I was familiar with Lord Peter from several novels and could fill in many details about his character. The stories are fun excursions into the sorts of elaborate arrangements Lord Peter can make to solve a crime. I have never seen Monty Egg in a novel, or heard of one that features him. He is another fun character, endlessly quoting rhyming couplets from a salesman's handbook, and applying his arcane knowledge to solve crimes that he happens to trip over. The two other stories are unremarkable.

A mystery of such brevity is of necessity a very different creature from a book-length puzzle. We don't see a lot of detective work, or lengthy puzzling over clues; there just isn't room. The stories are primarily a matter of seeing a detective (though not a pro in these cases) presented with a troublesome case and solving it through an ingenious insight. These were enjoyable because of the characters and Sayers's suitably breezy style. ( )