Strong Poison

On my second foray into the series I think I can say now with some certainty that Sayers…or at least Wimsey…is never going to become a firm favourite for me.

Some of this is undoubtedly due to confirmation bias. I am the granddaughter of somewhat militant Irish immigrants and both my parents were at one time shop stewards for their respective unions. On what I have seen to date Lord Peter Wimsey embodies everything I innately find…irksome about the aristocracy (that’s much softer language than my family would use). He’s even more annoying than Downton Abbey‘s Lady Mary. But there’s also the fact that he displays the preposterous brilliance in all avenues of human endeavour that is popular among fictional sleuths and his show more preponderance for making up words (someone calls it piffling in the book). I know some people find this delightful and I wish I did (as happened whenever Douglas Adams engaged in the same practice) but somehow it all combines to make him tiresome to me. Even his Achilles’ heel, only hinted at during the text proper but revealed in an end note to be shell shock brought on by his war service, has a kind of self-serving ring to it. Like a job candidate who answers “unbridled perfectionism” when asked what their weakness is.

Putting aside for a moment my disdain for the ‘wealthy chap with the luxury of choosing how he spends his time and money’ character I did actually enjoy the read much more than my earlier foray into the series.

STRONG POISON opens with a Judge providing his instructions to the jury in the murder trial of a woman writer called Harriet Vane. She is accused of poisoning Phillip Boyes, a man she had lived with until a year or so before his death. At first I thought this an odd and potentially dull way to start a story but actually it works well. Not only does it provide a good summary of how things stand – bringing the reader immediately into the heart of the story – but gives a clear sense of how dire things are for Harriet Vane. It looks impossible that she will avoid the hangman’s noose and the reader can’t help but want to know how the seemingly impenetrable case will be turned on its head (as we all know it is sure to be).

Which is where our master sleuth enters the fray. For reasons that I don’t think are ever provided (or if so I missed them) Wimsey has been watching the trial. He is convinced of Vane’s innocence and reveals, when he wrangles a visit to the prisoner, that he has also fallen for her. As far as this goes he is rebuffed fairly stiffly, being the 47th person to propose marriage since Vane has been accused of the murder, but he does not let that dissuade him from his quest to prove her innocence. With the aid of his butler, a sympathetic police inspector of his acquaintance and his own typing agency of women who can turn their hand to many things, the impossible task is tackled with vigour and creativity.

What follows is a little uneven. For example we spend, for my liking, way too much time learning how one of Wimsey’s agency women inveigles her way into a key player’s life by pretending to speak to (or for?) the dead, but for the most part the story is engaging in the way it picks apart each of the pillars of the prosecution’s case. Sayers has managed to make this suspenseful even though no one can be in any doubt that Vane isn’t going to die at the end of it all and that is not an accomplishment to be sneezed at.

There is also a strong sense of Sayers’ undoubted feminist streak. I’m not convinced that Wimsey is really as enlightened as we are presumably meant to believe. When he proposes marriage for example he does so on the basis that Harriet would be different from the “ordinary kind [of wife] that is only keen on clothes and people“. But the women of this story make their presence felt despite Wimsey’s near-omnipotence. Although she hardly appears Harriet herself is a strong character – not only making her way in the world without the aid of a man – but failing to succumb to Wimsey’s charms. I was quite pleased that this thread did not resolve in the way that might have been expected and not only due to my dislike of Wimsey.

English actress Jane McDowell read this story to me very entertainingly and I must admit I am tempted to let her read me the next instalment of the Wimsey/Vane storyline even though I don’t particularly like the man himself. There is much delight in hearing great dialogue spoken properly and Sayers does have some terrific passages here (mostly the ones without the made up words). So perhaps I it turns out I can enjoy a book even if I don’t like its main character. show less

Classic Golden Age crime romp with the redoubtable Lord Peter Wimsey.

A young crime writer with more than a passing resemblance to Dorothy Sayers herself is on trial for her life, charged with poisoning her former live-in lover and fellow writer with arsenic. She's even been recorded buying arsenic under an assumed name (research for her book she says, but she would wouldn't she?) The jury is out and even Inspector Charles Parker thinks its a cut-and-dried case. But Lord Peter, watching from the gallery, has his doubts. It only takes one stubborn juror to hold out for the trial to break down, and that gives Lord Peter just a month to get Harriet Vane off the hook.

It's all splendidly preposterous of course, but that's the whole joy of show more Lord Peter Wimsey and his team of irregular intelligence gatherers. There's even a fake séance allowing Sayers to have a dig at the contemporary fad for spiritualism. With this fifth volume in the Wimsey series, Dorothy Sayers is really getting into her stride. Cracking stuff. show less

I didn't think I could be surprised by this book. After all, I dived in two books later at 'Gaudy Night' so I already know Harriet Vane and I thought I understood her complex relationship with Peter Wimsey.

Yet the book did surprise me. Firstly because I saw no more of Harriet Vane that Wimsey did, which isn't much. Second, because the investigation to clear Vane's name and unmask the real killer is carried out not by Wimsey but by clever, resourceful women working for him. The final surprise was Wimsey himself. He carries a great deal more trauma with him than I had understood and his attraction to Vane goes beyond charmingly eccentric to desperate and obsessive until it seems that his love for her may be the 'Strong Poison' of the show more title. It took me a long time to see that, from Wimsey's point of view, he is not recognising Vane, she is rescuing him.

I'm not a fan of insta-love. It seems to me to be either a lazy plot device or a shared delusion. And yet, I could immediately see why Wimesy fell for Vane. She's tough, bright, educated, independent, honest with herself and capable simultaneously of dignity, humour and kindness. How could you not love that?

She is a woman under great pressure and with little hope and has just met for the first time an eccentric man who seems not to be playing with a full deck yet when Wimsey asks if he may call on her again in prison, she replies:

‘I will give the footman orders to admit you,’ said the prisoner, gravely; ‘you will always find me at home.’

Wimsey presents himself to Vane with all the grace of a new-born foal trying to learn to use its legs, but that's part of the fun. If you're going to propose to a woman the first time that you meet her, and that first time is when she's in prison for murder, then you go in knowing that, if you are to be honest, you cannot fail also to be absurd.

Yet, even in the midst of his awkwardness, the real man comes trough by asking one simple question. In his effort to assess the relationship between Vane and her former lover, who she is accused of having murdered, he asks:

'Were you friends?'

The question says a great deal about Wimsey's values and his insight into people. Vane's instant reply of 'No.' holds in it the doom of her relationship with her former lover and the 'repressed savagery' with which she delivers it explains a great deal about her and how she came to be in her current situation.

Given how clever and insightful Wimsey is and given that he has already said to Vane,

'you’ll understand that I’m not really such an ass as I’m looking at present.’

I'm a little unsure how much to take the charm of his marriage pitch to Vane at face value.

To a woman whose lover disdained friendship, he says

'I’d like somebody I could talk sensibly to, who would make life interesting. And I could give you a lot of plots for your books, if that’s any inducement.’

To a woman who has won her financial independence by writing fiction, he says that he would like a wife who writes books because

'...it would be great fun. So much more interesting than the ordinary kind that is only keen on clothes and people. Though, of course, clothes and people are all right too, in moderation.'

To a woman who has had her sexual history used against her in court and who reminds him that she has had a lover, he responds:

‘Oh, yes. So have I, if it comes to that. In fact, several. It’s the sort of thing that might happen to anybody.'

These remarks sound honest and innocent and most likely are both but are they not also artfully knowing and carefully persuasive?

If I were Harriet Vane, I'd want to believe in Wimsey's honesty but I'd find it hard to set aside his careful curation of his character.

After this initial encounter, the book stumbles a little as the unassailability of the case against Vane is established, one slow step at a time. Fortunately, that is the last problem with pace because, after that, I was introduced to The Cattery and its inmates and everything took off. show less

The Book Report: Lord Peter Wimsey, younger brother of the Duke of Denver, bibliophile, and dilettante in the arts and sciences of murder, meets his One True Love, the Other Half of His Soul; where else would he do this, but in court? Too bad she's the accused in a rather sensational murder trial, in which she is accused and about to be convicted of poisoning by arsenic her Illicit Lover, now ex- after having the *temerity* to propose honorable and legal marriage to her. He was, it turns out, having her on when he refused to countenance the idea of marriage; he was counting on his Peculiar Charms to sway his Muse and fellow novelist into revealing her true depths of devotion to him by setting this test. Having fallen (and Fallen) for show more it, Harriet felt (not at all unreasonably) that she'd been a right prat and, in umbrage extreme, slung the rotter out on his ear, refusing thereafter to treat his suit. Subsequent to their final meeting, unluckily, the rotter collapses and dies at his cousin's home, where he's been living for over a year since the end of the dream.
Lord Peter, attending the trial (as who would not?) with the Hon. Freddy and the Dowager Duchess of Denver (aka Mater), forms the simultaneous convictions that Harriet is innocent, and that she shall be Lady Wimsey as soon as the event can be fixed. How to forestall the hangman's deft attentions is his sole focus, needless to say, and he goes about proving the identity of the real culprit with his accustomed panache, energy, and cunning.
Ah, but stay the strain's of the Wedding March, dear readers, because Harriet...quite sensibly...is Once Bitten, Twice Shy re: matrimony. She offers herself as his leman, his dolly-bird, his bit o' stuff, but marriage? To a well-known aristocrat, with all the attendant hoo and pla? No, indeed. Wimsey is, well, not to fobbed off with mere sex when what he craves is glory and delight everlasting in matrimony golden, so he ankles off as soon as he sees her acquitted. The End. Only, of course, not so much. But that's another book.

My Review: A Certain Party, who shall remain nameless herein but is frequently addressed by me as "Horrible" and is known on LibraryThing as "karenmarie", has really, really put her foot in it this time. I mention, oh so casually in passing, that long, long ago I read and disliked this book. "Oh," burbles The Evil One, "I read that and found it both witty and amusing, don't you think it would be fun to re-read it?" I, ever the innocent and naive victim, forgot that the aforementioned Evil One has hooked me on ever-so many mystery series with her offhand cruelty, fell for it and re-read the book. Reader, beware! NEVER VENTURE NEAR HER! You'll end up reading long lists of (admittedly quite good) mysteries.

Wimsey is certainly not for every taste. His erudition, not notably fine for that era, is huge by modern standards, and so his references to poets, writers, and cultural furniture quite ordinary in the 1930s, will come across as condescending to thos of this less well-versed (!) time and place. His general attitude of privilege might cause some sensitive souls in the era of Political Correctness to flinch. And Sayers' lovely, steady, and quite dry prose will go down like a martini at a Salvation Army bash with the modern reader accustomed to gutter talk, explosions, gunshots, and generally seamy turpitude that passes for most modern mysteries.

And thank GOD for that. It's a breath of chamomile-scented mountain meadow air to me to re-find these books in a state and at a time when I can appreciate them. No one tell The Evil One, blast her eyes, that I am thoroughly glad to have read this book at 51 that I understood and so little of at 25. Loose lips sink ships! show less

A nice, pacy Sayers, although there are some oddities that separate it from earlier books in the series. First, Lord Peter is in it less than, I think, any of the preceding four novels; there is a huge sidetrack with Miss Climpson, who has returned from Unnatural Death, and another smaller one with Miss Murchison, a new character - both operating as Wimsey's agents. That breaks up the story in an interesting way, but it also has the secondary effect of keeping Lord Peter at arm's length from much of the action, which is peculiar. That, combined with the metric ton of exposition right at the front of the book, might give readers the sense that they can't quite find their footing - it certainly did me. This might actually be an easier show more book to read the second time around.

Then there's the introduction of the much-lauded Harriet Vane. As I'm reading these chronologically, I've never "met" Harriet before, but I'm certainly aware of her importance to the series and to Lord Peter. In this book, she's largely contained to a few bantery conversations with Wimsey - while he visits her in prison! - which feels both totally artificial and so ridiculous as to almost be endearing. If Sayers didn't intend Harriet to be her "Mary Sue" - well, you couldn't tell it by this book. I don't know quite what she will be like outside of her brief appearances here, but I worry that Harriet is essentially Sayers' equivalent to Agatha Christie's Ariadne Oliver - a character Christie obviously liked more than her audience ever did. We'll see.

Of course, the introduction of Oliver came just as Christie was starting to become tired of her famous detective, Poirot, and while I can't say I think Sayers is at the same place with Wimsey, she certainly seems tired of a version of him. We can tell that because of how tired Wimsey is of himself. He's feeling his age, for once, and wondering about the inevitable transition away from playful, devil-may-care youth. In fact, he's already started transitioning without realizing it. That's interesting, and I hope Sayers keeps up the introspection rather than pushing Wimsey entirely to the side.

If I had one complaint, it's that I again find Miss Climpson fairly "full on." Sayers is obviously having a fun time writing her over-emphasized dialogue, but as so often happens, the delights of a fussy old lady character are lost on me. She's just irritating - and perhaps that's the point. She may even be Sayers' parody of someone in her life, which I could believe very easily: a frustrating personality on the surface, but a smart and loyal friend underneath.

Regardless of my little hangups, this is a good book and it's easy to get stuck in. As often happens with Sayers, there's only one real mystery to solve and a limited number of suspects, so it's perhaps more of a thriller than an outright mystery. More than anything, though, the character perspectives carry you on through. show less

Crime fiction novelist Harriet Vane is on trial for poisoning her lover, Philip Boyes. While observing the trial from the audience in the courtroom, Lord Peter Wimsey falls in love with Harriet. He is certain that his good friend, Inspector Parker, and his Scotland Yard colleagues came to the wrong conclusion and that Harriet is innocent. Wimsey has just 30 days to investigate the murder and discover what Scotland Yard had missed. The stakes have never been higher for him, for if he fails, the love of his life will go to the gallows. Harriet parries a besotted Wimsey’s advances in the same spirit they’re offered. However, tension undergirds the surface levity as the day of reckoning draws ever closer.

Although I had seen the TV show more adaptation of this book, I’m not sure I had read it before, unless I borrowed it from the library. I bought most of the Wimsey novels in my teens, but this one isn’t in my collection. Even though I had no memory of reading this book, I had no trouble spotting the means of the murder when it was first introduced. Like the murderer, Sayers drew too much attention to it. Between Wimsey and Harriet’s witty banter and Miss Climpson’s foray into spiritualism, I don’t know when I’ve laughed so much while reading a detective novel! show less

It didn't matter a bit to me that it was obvious who the guilty party was in this sixth entry of the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery series. Plus, there was so much going on with the characters I didn't care if the case itself ever came to end. For starters, Lord Peter meets someone special in the least cute way possible and it’s up to him to save her from the gallows. He also gets some much needed help from a pair of spinster investigators and his gentleman’s gentleman manages to out‑Jeeves Jeeves. Btw, I got a kick out of Dorothy Sayers giving Bertie Wooster’s butler a brief nod in this book and I suspect there were a lot of similar references that I missed.