BOOK REVIEW WHOSE BODY? BY DOROTHY L SAYER

BOOK REVIEW FOR THE YEAR END

I have been reading Crime novels all year and also paying attention to all the killing of our wildlife and so reading a book of this kind takes my mind away from the bad things; from the bad people out there!

It refreshed me to read a crime story written in 1920’s. In fact I loved it and it was interesting too. Dorothy L Sayers created the affected, even whimsical character, of Lord Peter Wimsey who is a frustrated detective. However, he is well connected and has social and some political clout, and his power has even infiltrated the dusty corridors of the ‘old’, but then new, New Scotland Yard. Peter Parker his is mole and a very active detective operating from an office close to the iconic river side turreted gates.

Whose Body?, with an introduction by Laura Wilson, is the one with the body in a location that was unusual. The race was on between the unrespected Detective Inspector Suggs, and our Lord and his official Scotland Yard aide.

There is lots in the story to admire and it is woven around the things that were going in the 1920’s and with reference to medical research and dissecting students. And, of course, there is the aristocracy allowing into their ‘caste’ new money. Oh dear! The prejudice of it all.

Then there is the conclusion and who did it and why. That's the important bit for me together with the detail. It was absorbing.

Dorothy L Sayers is widely regarded as one of the greatest writers of The Golden Age of British crime fiction. It is good to read a story other than, and with no disrespect to modern authors, one who was of that Golden Age. And there are eleven books in all and my next one is Clouds Witness.