Skip to main content

Review: Clouds of Witness, by Dorothy Sayers


Pages: 279

Original date of publication: 1926

My edition: 1995 (Harper)

Why I decided to read: had a hankering for more Dorothy Sayers one morning

How I acquired my copy: Amazon.com, April 2010

Clouds of Witness is one of Dorothy Sayers’s earlier Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. It’s definitely not as good as Murder Must Advertise, or The Nine Tailors, but it certainly shows some promise.

Having just spent time abroad in Corsica, Lord Peter Wimsey returns to find that his brother Gerald, the Duke of Denver, has been accused of the murder of one of his houseguests at Riddlesdale Lodge, a house rented for the hunting season. The murdered man was Lord Peter and the Duke’s brother-in-law-to-be—so Lord Peter intervenes in what promises to be a sticky mess. It turns out that a lot of people are guilty of a lot of things, and it’s up to Wimsey to sort things out. What I love about this book is that you know who didn’t do it—the fun is in figuring out who did.

This book (the second Sayers wrote about Lord Peter, actually) isn’t as strong as some of her later books, but it’s pretty good nonetheless. The identification of the murderer isn’t as important here, though, as is a major twist that’s revealed near the end. Lord Peter himself, with his unusual manner of speaking and varied pursuits, is an endearing character, and it’s easy to see why Peter has inspired many other gentleman-detectives in fiction (Inspector Linley from Elizabeth George’s books). I thought that Lady Mary was one of the weaker characters (way too many dramatics for me). Clouds of Witness may be the second book in this series (after Whose Body?), but if you’re new to the series, you may want to start with this one—there’s a lot more character development, as well as the introduction of some characters who make recurring appearances throughout the series.

Comments

Ana S. said…
I keep hearing the early Lord Peter books aren't as good as the later ones, but I want to read them all just because I love her characters so much.
Hannah Stoneham said…
I have got this one, but have never read it - i enjoyed the Nine Tailors very much. Thanks for an interesting review!

Hannah

Popular posts from this blog

Another giveaway

This time, the publicist at WW Norton sent me two copies of The Glass of Time , by Michael Cox--so I'm giving away the second copy. Cox is the author of The Meaning of Night, and this book is the follow-up to that. Leave a comment here to enter to win it! The deadline is next Sunday, 10/5/08.

A giveaway winner, and another giveaway

The winner of the Girl in a Blue Dress contest is... Anna, of Diary of An Eccentric ! My new contest is for a copy of The Shape of Mercy , by Susan Meissner. According to Publisher's Weekly : Meissner's newest novel is potentially life-changing, the kind of inspirational fiction that prompts readers to call up old friends, lost loves or fallen-away family members to tell them that all is forgiven and that life is too short for holding grudges. Achingly romantic, the novel features the legacy of Mercy Hayworth—a young woman convicted during the Salem witch trials—whose words reach out from the past to forever transform the lives of two present-day women. These book lovers—Abigail Boyles, elderly, bitter and frail, and Lauren Lars Durough, wealthy, earnest and young—become unlikely friends, drawn together over the untimely death of Mercy, whose precious diary is all that remains of her too short life. And what a diary! Mercy's words not only beguile but help Abigail and Lars...

2015 Reading

January 1. The Vanishing Witch, by Karen Maitland 2. Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen 3. Texts From Jane Eyre, by Mallory Ortberg 4. Brighton Rock, by Graham Green 5. Brat Farrar, by Josephine Tey 6. Eat, Pray, Love, by Elizabeth Gilbert 7. Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy 8. A Movable Feast, by Ernest Hemingway 9. A Room of One's Own, by Virginia Woolf 10. Other Voices, Other Rooms, by Truman Capote 11. Maggie-Now, by Betty Smith February 1. Middlemarch, by George Eliot 2. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee 3. Nerdy, Shy, and Socially Inappropriate, by Cynthia Lee 4. Music For Chameleons, by Truman Capote 5. Peyton Place, by Grace Metalious 6. Unrequited, by Lisa Phillips 7. Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh 8. A Lost Lady, by Willa Cather March 1. Persuasion, by Jane Austen 2. Love With a Chance of Drowning, by Torre DeRoche 3. One Hundred Years of Solitude, by Gabriel Garcia Marquez 4. Miss Buncle's Book, by DE Stevenson 5. One Hundred Yea...