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Unnatural Death by Dorothy L. Sayers
Aug. 21st, 2021 12:25 pmI bounced off the second Lord Peter Wimsey book a few years ago, but I do like classic murder mysteries in general and some recent discussion of this one made me think it might be especially interesting, so I decided to give the series another go...
Unnatural Death (1927) opens with Lord Peter and his detective friend Charles Parker hearing a strange story from a doctor whom they meet by chance in a restaurant. Some time ago, a patient of this doctor's—an old woman with terminal cancer—died suddenly at a time when the doctor expected her to live for some time longer. A post-mortem found no reason to suspect anything other than natural causes, but the doctor still has his suspicions... and, after hearing them, Lord Peter decides to investigate.
As a murder mystery it's a slightly odd one; we're basically told within the first couple of chapters who the murderer is and what they did, and the rest of the book is about figuring out exactly how and why they dunnit, as well as stopping the escalating series of further crimes which the murderer starts committing to try and cover things up once they realise they're being investigated. But I did enjoy the unravelling of the mystery, especially the intricate and ingenious details of what Sayers calls 'the legal problem' of the murderer's motive. (Lots of lawyer humour!). And the setting, characters and background are fun too. I'm still not sure whether Lord Peter himself is kind of fun or just very annoying, but I liked the interactions between him and Parker, and the spinster detective Miss Climpson was an interesting figure. The historical-social details are great, too, although there is a bit much period-typical classism and racism (to be fair, Sayers/the narrative seems sympathetic to the black character in question, but this involves dumping a lot of in-universe racism on him in a way that's definitely not well-handled, and I ended up just feeling awful for him).
But what I really want to talk about is the backstory and all the lesbianism. To say that this book has mixed feelings about lesbians is... something, I suppose. It's an interesting one.
As part of their investigations, Peter and Parker, and the reader, end up learning a lot about the backstory of the murder victim, Agatha Dawson. She spent most of her life with her friend, Clara Whittaker, whom she met at school; they set up in business together breeding horses, with Clara handling the business side of things and Agatha looking after the house. They declare that they're never going to get married and are going to stay living with each other instead, and then do just that. While this causes some conflict with their families, they're universally well-liked by their friends and neighbours, and they live very happily until Clara's death a few years before the events of the novel. This is all presented, if not exactly as normal, then at least in a largely sympathetic and non-judgemental way—and the narrative is about as clear as it can be that this is a queer story. I loved it, and spent much of the book wanting to read a novel all about Agatha's and Clara's life and adventures together, instead of this irrelevant murder-mystery future fic.
( But on the other hand... (spoilers for the murderer's identity, but not for the big twists at the end) )
All of which is, in the context of Dorothy L. Sayers having contributed those poems to The Quorum, interesting stuff. You could resolve all this in various ways, but on the whole I'm not quite sure what to make of it.
Anyway! I did enjoy this book on the whole, and I think I may well continue with the rest of the series.
Unnatural Death (1927) opens with Lord Peter and his detective friend Charles Parker hearing a strange story from a doctor whom they meet by chance in a restaurant. Some time ago, a patient of this doctor's—an old woman with terminal cancer—died suddenly at a time when the doctor expected her to live for some time longer. A post-mortem found no reason to suspect anything other than natural causes, but the doctor still has his suspicions... and, after hearing them, Lord Peter decides to investigate.
As a murder mystery it's a slightly odd one; we're basically told within the first couple of chapters who the murderer is and what they did, and the rest of the book is about figuring out exactly how and why they dunnit, as well as stopping the escalating series of further crimes which the murderer starts committing to try and cover things up once they realise they're being investigated. But I did enjoy the unravelling of the mystery, especially the intricate and ingenious details of what Sayers calls 'the legal problem' of the murderer's motive. (Lots of lawyer humour!). And the setting, characters and background are fun too. I'm still not sure whether Lord Peter himself is kind of fun or just very annoying, but I liked the interactions between him and Parker, and the spinster detective Miss Climpson was an interesting figure. The historical-social details are great, too, although there is a bit much period-typical classism and racism (to be fair, Sayers/the narrative seems sympathetic to the black character in question, but this involves dumping a lot of in-universe racism on him in a way that's definitely not well-handled, and I ended up just feeling awful for him).
But what I really want to talk about is the backstory and all the lesbianism. To say that this book has mixed feelings about lesbians is... something, I suppose. It's an interesting one.
As part of their investigations, Peter and Parker, and the reader, end up learning a lot about the backstory of the murder victim, Agatha Dawson. She spent most of her life with her friend, Clara Whittaker, whom she met at school; they set up in business together breeding horses, with Clara handling the business side of things and Agatha looking after the house. They declare that they're never going to get married and are going to stay living with each other instead, and then do just that. While this causes some conflict with their families, they're universally well-liked by their friends and neighbours, and they live very happily until Clara's death a few years before the events of the novel. This is all presented, if not exactly as normal, then at least in a largely sympathetic and non-judgemental way—and the narrative is about as clear as it can be that this is a queer story. I loved it, and spent much of the book wanting to read a novel all about Agatha's and Clara's life and adventures together, instead of this irrelevant murder-mystery future fic.
( But on the other hand... (spoilers for the murderer's identity, but not for the big twists at the end) )
All of which is, in the context of Dorothy L. Sayers having contributed those poems to The Quorum, interesting stuff. You could resolve all this in various ways, but on the whole I'm not quite sure what to make of it.
Anyway! I did enjoy this book on the whole, and I think I may well continue with the rest of the series.
