Jun. 15th, 2008

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I finished reading "Three for Lord Peter Wimsey" on Thursday evening. I'm torn between counting this as three books or as one. It contains three mysteries originally published as stand alone books. Obviously, this edition has all three in one volume. I'll be hard on myself and count them as one.

These stories poke a lot of fun at the mystery genre, Sayers contemporaries, and her predecessors. The references to Holmes are sometimes biting. There was more than once I wanted to refer to Lord Peter as Bertie and Bunter as Jeeves. I guess this isn't surprising because Sayers herself has mentioned the Woosterness of Wimsey. The jokes about perfect poisons and convenient details are spot on pokes at the sins of mystery authors.

I think the obvious prejudices that come out in the stories are Sayers way of bringing them up before the light and criticizing them. Her heroes are shown interacting with people who use racial slurs, but those using the slurs are generally lower class, less educated and shown to be less thinking. To me, that smells of social commentary not an author with a lot of prejudice.

I didn't find Sayers plots or characters as interesting as Christie, but the stories are a good read.

29. Dorothy Sayers "Three for Lord Peter Wimsey"

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