Lord Peter Views the Body

With an informative introduction by Jill Paton Walsh, this volume of short stories originally published in 1928 allow us further time with Lord Peter Wimsey, Dorothy L Sayers’ excellent amateur detective.
Having read many of the Lord Peter Wimsey novels, these stories are like the icing on the cake, and are joyfully entertaining, allowing this reader the illusion of being able to step back nearly 100 years, into a time when a dowager duchess or manservant is an unexceptional character in the story (well, one can dream!).
Are the stories dated, yes dreadfully, but therein lies part of their undoubted charm.
Delightfully nostalgic fantasy, which can sometimes be just what’s wanted.

The levity with which these mysteries are couched is show more reflected in their titles, such as The Piscatorial Farce of the Stolen Stomach, which is partially set in Kirkcudbrightshire, a county to which Sayers returned in Five Red Herrings.
The Unsolved Puzzle of the Man with No Face involves the murder of a man on the beach involving a rocky promontory which feels like a precursor of that featuring in Strong Poison.
The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba is a rather disappointing finale to what is otherwise a very high quality collection of short stories.

My edition was published in 2017 by the Folio Society and is copiously illustrated by Paul Cox with black and white drawings that perfectly capture the 1920’s setting of the stories. show less

This collection of 12 short stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey was new to me. When I read most of the Wimsey books in my late teens, I didn’t care for short stories. I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed this collection. Sayers’ writing sparkles with vivid descriptions of scenery and Wimsey’s wit and vocabulary. The stories showcased various aspects of Wimsey’s character. I loved “The Learned Adventure of the Dragon’s Head,” in which Wimsey has the care of his 10-year-old nephew when his school unexpectedly closes due to an outbreak of measles. I was sorry that the collection ended on a sour note with “The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba,” which strained credulity too far.

One passage in “The show more Vindictive Story of the Footsteps that Ran” caught my eye:

That’s it. My right-hand man, Bunter; couldn’t do a thing without him. The picture’s latent till you put the developer on. Same with the brain. No mystery. Little grey books all my respected grandmother! Little grey matter’s all you want to remember things with...

It immediately brought to mind Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot and his “little grey cells.” It left me wondering if Christie influenced Sayers, Sayers influenced Christie, or if both were influenced by the pop psychology of their day. show less

The Best of the Wimsey Shorts
Review of the Hodder & Stoughton paperback edition (2017) of the 1928 original

Too much modern crime fiction dwells in degradation and pain. Sayers acknowledges tragedy but has grander schemes in mind - to entertain and enlighten with suspense, subtlety and a sense of humour. - from the Introduction by Christopher Fowler.

I actually read all of these 12 stories earlier this year in [book:Lord Peter Wimsey: The Complete Short Stories|36661909] (2018) which also collects all of the Wimsey shorts from Hangman's Holiday (Wimsey #9) (1933 - only 4 Wimsey stories), In the Teeth of the Evidence (Wimsey #14) (1939 - only 2 Wimsey stories) and Striding Folly (Wimsey #15) (1939/1973 - only 3 Wimsey stories). That show more collection ends on a sliding down note though as the later stories see a domesticated Wimsey handling mundane issues such as squabbling neighbours.

In contrast, Lord Peter Views the Body portrays a wide range of stories with a dynamic younger Wimsey solving crimes from the macabre opening of The Abominable History of the Man With Copper Fingers through to his proto-James Bond in The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba. That closing story has Wimsey single-handedly defeating a proto-SPECTRE gang led by a cold villainous proto-Ernst Stavro Blofeld-like Number One character.

Each story features unique solving methods which include everything from vintage wines, playing cards, treasure maps, crossword puzzles and site-removed deductions. Lord Peter Views the Body was a delightful re-read that had none of the downsides of the longer anthology. show less

Lord Peter Wimsey has always been my favourite among the more laid-back, classical detectives, ever since I first read them as a teenager (after watching the BBC TV series with the fabulous Ian Carmichael). Back then, I read them in German translation, but am now doing a re-read of the whole series in the original language which, needless to say, is much more to be preferred – I do not know whether anyone ever actually talked like that, even back in the twenties and thirties, but it is great fun just to relish the dialogue.

Lord Peter Views the Body is a collection of stories and does not quite live up to novels, but for the most part is very enjoyable. The quality of course does vary a bit, but the only one I did not like at all was show more the final one, “The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba”, because it’s rather a bit too cloak and dagger. My personal favourites are ”The Bibulous Business of a Matter of Taste”, which basically describes a wine-tasting competition, and “The Learned Adventure of the Dragon’s Head”, which features Lord Peter’s nephew George, a dragon (of course) and a pirate’s treasure – both are just great fun and a pleasure to read.

I suppose the Lord Peter novels and stories count as “cosy mysteries”, but it struck me while reading this collection that on closer look many of the stories are not really all that cosy, but paint a rather grim view of human nature: Most people making an appearance vary from petty and mean-spirited to downright evil, with only very few exceptions that one would call “good” with hesitation. That might be due to the genre Sayers was writing in, or to her Christian world view, but will bear keeping in mind when I go on to read the other Lord Peter novels. show less

Clever collection of short mysteries starring Wimsey. Some whiplash, jumping around in time, but a lot of very interesting brain pleasing stories. One particularly hilarious auction day, where Lord Peter behaves badly had me laughing loudly, although a typo in Hypnotermachia had me wincing. Wincing also at the racial slurs that rise up from nowhere in Sayers' work, and are a mirror of her time.

5/10

Update Mar 9.

After sleeping on this a few days, I've downgraded its rating, set as buoy for other readers. It's actually put a spoke in my wheels about reading the rest of the Wimsey series.

With a completely dispassionate view, I'll have to admit some of these stories are just bl**dy awful. What was she thinking? Surely, these are some of the worst sketches ever created by a writer, and I wonder if Sayers ever wanted these to see the light of day.

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This is more a series of sketches on Lord Wimsey that Sayers seems to have "pencilled" in while working out her longer mystery series on the eminent Lord P.

I had never read any Sayers books, including any of the Wimseys, so it seemed like a good show more time to jump in. I can't seem to focus on anything at all these days, for various reasons, and yet I crave to read, so thought I would work my way through something that is "none too taxing". I seem to have found the right pile of books to rest my wandering thoughts on, for this series requires very little concentration (or attention, for that matter).

A good palate cleanser for modern times.

While Sayers is a very good, literary writer, I mourn that she spent so much ink on this series. She is literary, erudite, well read. One could build a thesaurus around her writerly capabilities -- and yet her mysteries are extra-light little detective novels that sometimes feel as if the plot lines were constructed by 5th-graders taxed to write a composition on their version of Sherlock Holmes.

There is only the barest (skimpy thin) of plots, rounded out with oodles and piles of classical references. (That's the fun part.) The series is riddled with tidbits of Sayers's classical learnin', dontcha know. We come to know much more about Sayers, in fact, than we do about Wimsey. We know that she is more than a bit of a snob, a literary and intellectual "smarty pants" and she likes to tell the world about how clever she is, through Peter Wimsey. The thing is, she really was quite clever, ... so why not do more with her tremendous intellect? She puzzles me to no end.

Her characterization of Wimsey does not offer any of the satisfying wisdom found in Miss Marple, for instance; or the worldly shrewdness found in Hercule Poirot. There is just a flighty Lord with lots of amazing luck and a briefcase full of classical quotes. I suppose, in the end, what makes him endearing is his humility and bookishness -- but other than that ... pffft.

Nonetheless, I will continue to amble about England, and make the occasional skip over to the continent with Wimsey et al because finding classical nuggets and operating at a 5th-grade level suits my weary soul at the moment. show less

While I enjoyed seeing Lord Peter in his various manifestations, the stories are not well-plotted and often are downright silly. The last story is perhaps one of the best and I was amused by this line: "I've got the great big top Moriarty of the whole bunch quietly asphyxiating at home."