The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers

[meganbmoore]

This was, in some ways, a bit jarring after the last Wimsey novel. Set in Galloway, it focuses on the seemingly accidental death of a painter. The police are perfectly willing to dismiss the death as an accident with little or no investigation, but Wimsey says that something in painting proves that it was murder, without explaining what the something is.

Unlike Strong Poison there’s no emotional attachment to the case for Wimsey. The victim, by all accounts, was an unpleasant person, and the six suspects are all decent people. His main motivation here isn’t to save an innocent or, it seems, even to punish the guilty, but to keep the innocent suspects from living under a cloud of suspicion. No mention is made of the fairly major changes in both Wimsey and Parker’s lives in Strong Poison, unless it was a passing mention that I missed. Unless you count Galloway being a popular place for artists at the time, there’s also no strong evidence of Sayers’s tendency to address social issues and movements of the time, or of Wimsey’s mental problems. None of this, incidentally, is to say that any of that is bad. The book seems to have been written for fun, which the foreword supports. (That, and being written because a friend wanted her to set a story there.)

Most of the book actually isn’t told from Wimsey’s point of view, and there are stretches where he’s completely absent. Instead, we spend more time in the heads of the various investigators looking into the case. For most of the book, the reader doesn’t know much more than the narrator at the time, and usually less than Wimsey does, even more so than usual. In some ways, the book is set up more to make the reader the detective than Wimsey. When theories are put forth, the only information provided is what the reader has seen given before, and the reader isn’t given anything extra to fill in the holes, or anything to help guide conclusions, just a lot of possibilities. No helping hand is offered until Wimsey reveals all. In a lot of ways, it’s probably the purest “Who done it?” of the series. So far, at least. 

Comments

[melengro.livejournal.com]

Well, Have His Carcase is way different: very emotional, Harriet-centric, and tied up in what were then current events. Both are great books, but the mood whiplash can be a bit jarring if you're not ready for it.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

I kind of figured this one was a bit of a break for her.

Actually, I'm kind of glad this was lighter, because I was alternating it with Chaucer's Troilus and Creseyde, and it hasn't exactly been a relaxing last 2 days.

[melengro.livejournal.com]

HHC isn't 'dark'; it's actually a very fun and very romantic book. But it's definitely not as light as FRH.

[cerusee.livejournal.com]

This is the only Wimsey book I started that didn't take hold of me right away, and I ended up not finishing it because I had to return it to the library and was preparing for a move. I keep meaning to request it via ILL and try again when I'm not up to my eyeballs in packing material.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

FRH is the only Wimsey book I don't own and don't ever need to reread again - it really feels like the odd man out among them.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It is very different from the rest.

*stares at icon*

That is an awesome quote. My selfish self says you should remake some of those 1930's icons with Harriet quotes.

[sienamystic.livejournal.com]

Isn't it great? It's from ogeecons - just click on the tag that says Dorothy L. Sayers and several Sayers-related pages pop up. They're available for the taking.

I'm only at six icons currently, as my account expired and I haven't yet renewed it, but I'm glad this one stayed available. And I think I'm going to try to do what you suggest when I have a bit of time - and maybe after scanning another few magazines!

[swanjun.livejournal.com]

Heh. I'm reading this right now! I was just saying to friends that they should market this as a sleep aid, because it put me to sleep about 4 times in the first couple of chapters, what with all of the scenic description (to please that friend of hers, I guess).

I'm still in the early stages, but it has since picked up and Wimsey is on the case.

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

Yeah, the first few chapters were pretty slow. It does pick up, though, but remains pretty different from the other Wimsey books. Still, the lighter, uninvolving storyline was pretty much what I needed yesterday.

[ladysaotome.livejournal.com]

It may have been the purest but it was also the most tedious. I got sooo tired of the constant repeat of the many theories - I started pretty much skipping them toward the end. And there was almost no Bunter at all!

[meganbmoore.livejournal.com]

It seems to have been written for fun more than anything else.

[swanjun.livejournal.com]

I actually liked the different theories and how they all worked with the evidence, but I'm really looking to the next and Peter and Harriet working together on a case.