Hangman's Holiday

Half the detective stories are Lord Peter half are Montague Egg, the traveling salesman. I don't think you could enjoy even the Lord Peter stories without having read at least one Lord Peter novel. Montague Egg is barely a character, and never got a novel, so his stories are interesting only as period pieces. Some Lord Peter short stories are actually rather enjoyable; but those in this collection, with the exception of "The Incredible Elopement..." are middling. The two short stories at the end are just by-the-numbers exercises in dramatic irony.

Extremely short and wildly uneven. Interesting to see how her non-Wimsey stories compare. Very interesting to see her dip a toe into the early 20th century horror genre. She captures ghastly almost too well. Also, there's an interesting bit of meta on "one of those mystery novels" that rips it apart on exactly the lines of what bugged me about Have His Carcase. Makes me suspect DLS was srsly blocked in this era and sending any damned thing to the publisher while struggling to put another good novel together.

Summary: Mysteries in short story form featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and wine merchant Montague Egg plus two other tales.

Sometimes there is something uniquely satisfying about reading a mystery in one sitting. If this is you, Hangman’s Holiday is just the thing. In this collection, Dorothy L. Sayers includes four stories featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, another six with the peripatetic wine merchant, Montague Egg, and two other stories.

The Lord Peter stories open the collection with a man troubled by a doppelganger and a condition in which all his organs are in reverse position. The next story takes place in Basque Spain in which Wimsey becomes involved in saving a woman thought to be bewitched. The third story occurs at a masquerade ball show more where quests dress as one of the face cards in a deck of playing cards. One of the guests is found strangled and Wimsey finds the killer by noticing a trick of the light. The last story involves a missing string of pearls and their similarity to the berries of mistletoe.

Montague Egg is a traveling wine purveyor. The first mystery is on its face an account of a customer poisoned by one of his wines. He solves the mystery and identifies the killer by a count of empties and a change of manners. In the second, Egg happens to be at a shabby pub when news comes of a murder in the vicinity. Egg’s familiarity with the practices of a profession come in handy in identifying the murderer among them. The in the third story, one of Egg’s sales calls turns into a murder investigation when he finds his prospective customer dead with his head bashed in. Clocks and automotive garages figure in this one.

“One Too Many” turns on Egg’s knowledge of train tickets, helping catch an absconding banker. Then Egg helps track down who killed an Oxford Master. In this case the man who cried ‘Wolf” too many times was the real murderer. Finally, Egg helps an impoverished child sell her pet only to have it return. When he tracks down the new owner, he discovers murder.

The first of the other stories concerns a man who believes a serial killer is trying to kill him. The last story focuses on a character who kills his blackmailer, only to discover he has a new one.

My favorites were Wimsey in Basque country and Egg solving the case of the poisoned wine. It’s been several years since I’ve read any Sayers and these stories reminded me how much I enjoyed her. And I loved the character of Montague Egg! show less

Hangman’s Holiday by Dorothy Sayers is a book of short stories in which both Lord Peter Wimsey and Montague Egg make their appearance. Lord Peter needed no introduction as he has been a favorite of mine for some time, his quick wit and keen eye have aided the police in their investigations many times. While the newly introduced and wonderfully named Montague Egg is a free-spirited, travelling wine salesman with the unfortunate habit of stumbling over murder scenes.

The stories are all appropriately puzzling with four featuring Lord Peter, six with Montague Egg and two stand-alone mysteries. While I am not usually a huge fan of short stories these were enjoyable due to the author’s clever plots and use of witty dialogue.

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 show more 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. show less

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 show more 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. show less

2020 reread was via audiobook narrated by Ian Carmichael. This collection of short stories contains:

Lord Peter Wimsey stories:
"The Image in the Mirror"
"The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey"
"The Queen's Square"
"The Necklace of Pearls"
Montague Egg stories:
"The Poisoned Dow '08"
"Sleuths on the Scent"
"Murder in the Morning"
"One Too Many"
"Murder at Pentecost"
"Maher-Shalal-Hashbaz"
Other stories:
"The Man Who Knew How"
"The Fountain Plays"

As much as I enjoyed the Lord Peter stories, in this reread I found that the Montague Egg stories appealed to me most. Good mysteries plus the humor of Egg's aphorisms :)