Unnatural Death

Lots going on here. In addition to the mystery itself, Unnatural Death is an exploration of the female spinster, of inheritance law and notions of "pedigree", and of the ethics of detection as a hobby.

It can be hard, in an older book like this, to figure out whether a character's distrust of lesbians, people of color, and other marginalized groups is a) shedding light on a contemporary social issue vs. b) a conduit of the author's own beliefs. This is something I've been struggling with while reading Golden Age of Mystery stories by Christie, Sayers, and Tey, as they are all undoubtedly products of their time.

It's true Sayers doesn't merely let simple stereotypes sit uninterrogated. Lord Peter playing on the public eagerness to hate the show more mixed-race Reverend Hallelujah Dawson turns out to have been a reckless endangerment of an innocent man-- albeit one written as so affable and harmless he is void of real agency or character. The independent Mary Whittaker, who chooses a woman as her life companion, is a fully realized character with intelligence and desperate emotion-- but Lord Peter's ultimate distrust of her turns out to have been absolutely the right move, since she turns out to be a predator who killed her aunt and did away with her implied lover. And we must remember the elder Miss Whittaker and Miss Dawson apparently lived in peace and respectability in their lifelong "companionship", though Miss Climpson, a character we are designed to find endearing, decries that sort of lifestyle as unnatural, and ends to book being menaced by the evil man-hating Mary.

Is Sayers starting to move towards something? I can imagine a version of this book where all of this ties into Lord Peter's realization of the dangers of his hobby of playing detective, and where the message is ultimately that assuming someone's guilt or innocence based on whether the Miss Climpsons of the world dislike them is an immense gamble and a foolish enterprise, as these suspects are not archetypes but people, shaped but not defined by their origins and orientations. Not super nuanced-- basic empathy stuff. Instead, however, we are left with a book where the ultimate message is "whew, it's good he wasn't a bad one, you know, the ones we hate" and "it's a shame she wasn't a good one, you know, the ones who didn't intrude on us." Because in Sayers' formulation of the world, you must be very careful of these people, and find out which "kind" they really are.

At least, that's what I thought of the book. show less

It's been over a decade since I read the first two Lord Peter Wimsey novels, and reading this one, which my wife acquired second hand in an eyewatering bilious-green edition from 1976, had me lamenting my wasted years. Or it might be that Sayers is getting into her stride and improving with every outing; I hope so. There's a lot going on here narratively and thematically. I love redoubtable "odd woman" (in Gissing's sense) Miss Climpson, with her exuberant epistolary style, and Wimsey's tapping into the pool of two million "excess women" to gather intelligence far outside his own ambit. I love the portrayal in backstory of the 19th century lesbian couple, one a successful horse breeder, the other the homemaker who ends up as the book's show more initial victim. There's lesbianism throughout the book, although as the top GoodReads review (by Dorothea, in case that changes) says, it's not always portrayed so fondly. But I wonder if our villainess is really lesbian or just a cold fish? She's certainly pretty chilling. I was also very struck (surely not stricken) by Sayers' moral/religious commentary in this one. It's brief but quite profound, Miss Climpson agonising over whether to betray the secrets of the confessional (she stumbles across some preparatory notes) in search of a crucial clue, and the atheistic Wimsey doing some productive soul-searching with a Catholic priest. Wimsey and his Watson, Det. Charles Parker (and Sayers has plenty of fun with the Holmes inspo) are on top form and the former finds himself in real jeopardy during a standout scene in between quoting liberally from Shakespeare, Romantics et al, driving like a wanker and generally sleuthing the shit out of things in a noble-foppish way... show less

This is my introduction to Lord Peter Wimsey, who carries his name well: whimsical, clever, almost elfish, he is a dare-devil with smarts whereas his counterpart, Detective-Inspector Parker has more braun. I enjoyed the dynamic between the two.
Aspects of the book have aged poorly but it is an interesting insight into how racialised and LGBTQ communities were viewed back then (in a more progressive light than I would have overall expected).
Overall a nice, fun, light read

After a chance meeting with a doctor whose patient inexplicably died 3 years ago, Lord Peter Wimsey looks into the case.

Lord Peter doesn't have quite so many near escapes from death in this one, which makes it better in my opinion. The lesbian affairs of the victim and the murderer (not with each other!) and the casual racism of many of the characters make it an interesting read as a relic of a bygone age. Though it should be stressed that the racism seems to be the characters' while the author seems more enlightened. The black character in the book is a good clergyman, just as in previous works despite the anti-Semitism expressed by some of the characters, the actual Jewish characters are decent human beings.

The beginning of the shift from the early Lord Peter to the Peter we're more familiar with from the books which feature Harriet. The plot is as convoluted and vaguely implausible as you might expect, focused more on the how- and whydunnit than the who. It's mostly interesting as an artefact of its time: the breathtakingly casual level of the racism exhibited by many of the characters; the faintly stereotypical yet entirely sympathetic depiction of the only character of colour in the book; the wonky gender essentialism; the hinted at lesbian relationships, one of them portrayed as happy and life-long, the others... not so much.

Unnatural Death opens with a bystander overhearing a dinner conversation between Lord Peter and his best friend and colleague (besides Bunter, that is), Charles Parker, an Inspector at Scotland Yard. The bystander is a doctor who had public doubts about an apparent natural death due to cancer that defied his predicted survival timeframe. He paid a high social cost for expressing his concern and wanted to move on. Lord Peter took his doubts seriously enough to figure out the name and location of the decedent and embark on an investigation. This is the book where Charles is introduced to Miss Climpson, Lord Peter's premier confidential agent, hilariously misunderstood to be a love interest in a discreet love nest. Peter sends Miss show more Climpson to the village to dig up gossip and observe the local characters involved. And Bunter plays a role at appropriate moments, as does Mr. Murbles, Lord Peter’s solicitor. Charles Parker doesn't believe there's anything to investigate for the first half of the story, until additional people associated with the case die of apparent natural causes and a motive is finally uncovered. By the end, there were 3 murders, 3 attempted murders, and 1 suicide, all starting with an old woman supposedly dying of metastatic cancer in the hospice care of the day. The visual aid of a genealogical table at the end helps put the motive in perspective. I think it might be the highest body count of any of the Lord Peter mysteries, and certainly one of the most violent near misses. . The murderer is unrepentant and fighting to the end. This book was very much a contemplation on gender norms and roles and implicit lesbian relationships, as well as Lord Peter questioning whether his activities cause more harm than good show less

Several years ago I tried and failed to read [b:Whose Body?|192893|Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey, #1)|Dorothy L. Sayers|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1387573241l/192893._SY75_.jpg|1090544], primarily because I hated it. I don't remember how far I got before putting it down for good but it wasn't far. This was disappointing to say the least, because I'm not ready to re-read all 12,000 Agatha Christies, but I have been feeling the need to read something similar.

Aside from that, people seem to really love Dorothy Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey and so I could not believe that I didn't. I don't think people usually hate books by mistake, but I guess stranger things have happened, and so I decided to show more try #3 in the series (having read that it's a big improvement over the first one).

And it is! Here's proof:

"'And Agatha Dawson didn't want to die,' added Parker, "she said so.'
'No,' said Wimsey, thoughtfully, 'and I suppose she had a right to an opinion.'"

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