Dorothy Leigh Sayers

Page Updated: 06/09/2004

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Dorothy Leigh Sayers - Page 2

Gaudy Night

The Nine Tailors

Murder Must Advertise

Have His Carcase

The Five Red Herrings

First British Edition Gollancz (1935)

Gaudy Night
Harriet calls in Lord Peter to help her unmask an invisible foe, hiding behind a poison pen at Shrewsbury College, Oxford. Ten years after graduation, Harriet, now a successful novelist, returns to her alma mater for the Gaudy Night celebrations. It should be a time for fond reminiscence, as Harriet is reunited with her fellow-students. But it turns into something far more sinister when obscene graffiti start appearing, followed by vitriolic letters. A ten-year hatred is the subject of Lord Peter and Harriet's investigation - in the case that, ironically, finally saw their relationship turn to love.
'I predict that you will be immensely interested… Dorothy Sayers is in a class by herself.' Chicago Tribune

Paperback - NEL

First British Edition Gollancz (1934)

The Nine Tailors
Changes rung on an Old Theme
in
Two short Touches and
Two Full Peals
As a night blizzard rages, Lord Peter drives with his valet, Bunter, through the Cambridgeshire Fen country; the car skids off the road, and the two are stranded in Fenchurch St Paul - whose church houses the nine bells of the title - as the changes are rung for the New Year. Some months later, a body is discovered buried in the village churchyard, disfigured beyond recognition. Wimsey is called back to investigate this murder - a murder all the more shocking for its quiet, rural setting - and his enquiries draw out some unusual suspects as he pieces together the horrible fate of the dead man.
'One of the most engaging detective stories that I have ever read. It is more than a mere detective story… it is a really good novel of astonishing virtuosity' The Sunday Times (on first publication)

First British Edition Gollancz (1933)

Murder Must Advertise
A Detective Story
At Pym's Publicity, life must go on after the tragedy of Victor Dean's accidental fall down the spiral staircase, and a new copywriter is hired to take his place. The new man is actually Lord Peter, working incognito - called in by Mr Pym, who thinks there is more to Dean's death than meets the eye. Wimsey must sift the truth from the gossip in a mystery that leads him from the offices of the Bloomsbury media to beau monde parties where the Bright Young Things kick up their heels. Questions involve him in a vicious network of blackmailers and dope pedlars, ruthless men who will kill - and kill again - to protect themselves. Five people die before one of the most sinister and deadly plots in contemporary crime fiction is finally unravelled.
Sayers had been a copywriter herself - and her glee at recreating her old workplace is evident in the fictitious advertising campaigns and sparkling repartee of the Pym's Publicity employees.
'An extremely clever book'Dilys Powell, The Spectator
'Miss Sayers has long stood in a class by herself.' Times Literary Supplement

First British Edition Gollancz (1932)

Have His Carcase
Murder brings Lord Peter and Harriet together again: when walking on a Dorset beach, Harriet discovers a corpse, the throat cut from ear to ear. Lord Peter comes to her assistance, and their inquiries lead from a distinctive razor blade to the salons of London's fashionable Jermyn Street, from a Russian émigré and professional dance-partner to a mysterious man with one shoulder higher than the other. As they investigate the trail of coded messages and secret agents, Harriet and Lord Peter's relationship becomes as tangled as the cat's-cradle of hints and clues that they are trying to unravel.
'A nearly perfect detective story' Saturday Review

Hardback
Gollancz (1951)

The Five Red Herrings
When the body of Campbell, the landscape painter, is found in a stream, his head dashed against the pointed rocks, none of the inhabitants of Kirkcudbright is particularly grieved. He was an offensive man, liked by no-one. Lord Peter Wimsey could imagine the artist stepping back, the stagger, the fall, down to where the pointed rocks grinned like teeth.
But was it an accident? Wimsey is convinced otherwise but it's not easy to investigate a crime in a village whose inhabitants are hostile to outsiders. And how could Campbell still have been painting at least 10 hours after he died?
Six people did not regret Campbell's death… five were red herrings.
Set in the unusual background of an artists' colony in Galloway, in the south of Scotland, Five Red Herrings is one of the best of Dorothy L. Sayers' murder-mystery novels which made her the leading writer in the detective fiction field.