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Jul. 31st, 2010 09:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jennariaUNNATURAL DEATH, by Dorothy Sayers.
Cover copy: The wealthy old woman was dead - a trifle sooner than expected. The intricate trail of horror and senseless murder led from a beautiful Hampshire village to a fashionable London flat and a deliberate test of amour - staged by the debonair sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.
Gender of detective: male
"I happened to find out that a young woman had murdered an old one for her money," Peter Wimsey says in the much better-known GAUDY NIGHT. "It didn't matter much: the old woman was dying in any case, and the girl (though she didn't know that) would have inherited the money in any case. As soon as I started to meddle, the girl set to work again, killed two innocent people to cover her tracks and murderously attacked three others. Finally she killed herself. If I'd left her alone, there might have been only one death instead of four."
I was rather surprised to pick up this novel, because I hadn't realized that the summary Winsey gives above was of an actual official (novelized) case. His summary isn't exactly accurate: the whole point of UNNATURAL DEATH is that, due to some then-recent changes in inheritance law, it isn't certain that the girl would have inherited in any case. Likewise, at least one of the attacks pre-dates Wimsey's 'meddling.'
But Wimsey's summary does give a much better sense of the feel of the novel than the back cover does. This is a downright depressing novel, wherein even the best of intentions go astray, culminating in the suicide of the captured murderer rather than face trial and the death penalty. Without the awareness of it being a part of a series - without being able to continue on to GAUDY NIGHT, wherein Peter (and Harriet) face the question of responsiblity for other people's actions, and come out the other side.
Also worth noting: the ambiguously gay relationship between the girl, Mary Whittaker, and her best friend. Miss Climpson, the private investigator that Peter sends down, assesses it as being unhealthily close, a schoolgirl crush that has for some reason outlasted the schoolgirl years. Then again, Miss Climpson also has Firm Ideas about women needing men, and the narrative voice makes a firm point about Miss Climpson not being a Natural Spinster, whatever that might be. It's difficult to judge how much of the subtext is intended, and how much it's simply meant to imply that Mary Whittaker was unnatural (she's also portrayed as trying to seduce Peter Wimsey, and making a bad job of it because she clearly loathes touching him). Mostly this only serves to make an already depressing book even more so.
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Cover copy: The wealthy old woman was dead - a trifle sooner than expected. The intricate trail of horror and senseless murder led from a beautiful Hampshire village to a fashionable London flat and a deliberate test of amour - staged by the debonair sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.
Gender of detective: male
"I happened to find out that a young woman had murdered an old one for her money," Peter Wimsey says in the much better-known GAUDY NIGHT. "It didn't matter much: the old woman was dying in any case, and the girl (though she didn't know that) would have inherited the money in any case. As soon as I started to meddle, the girl set to work again, killed two innocent people to cover her tracks and murderously attacked three others. Finally she killed herself. If I'd left her alone, there might have been only one death instead of four."
I was rather surprised to pick up this novel, because I hadn't realized that the summary Winsey gives above was of an actual official (novelized) case. His summary isn't exactly accurate: the whole point of UNNATURAL DEATH is that, due to some then-recent changes in inheritance law, it isn't certain that the girl would have inherited in any case. Likewise, at least one of the attacks pre-dates Wimsey's 'meddling.'
But Wimsey's summary does give a much better sense of the feel of the novel than the back cover does. This is a downright depressing novel, wherein even the best of intentions go astray, culminating in the suicide of the captured murderer rather than face trial and the death penalty. Without the awareness of it being a part of a series - without being able to continue on to GAUDY NIGHT, wherein Peter (and Harriet) face the question of responsiblity for other people's actions, and come out the other side.
Also worth noting: the ambiguously gay relationship between the girl, Mary Whittaker, and her best friend. Miss Climpson, the private investigator that Peter sends down, assesses it as being unhealthily close, a schoolgirl crush that has for some reason outlasted the schoolgirl years. Then again, Miss Climpson also has Firm Ideas about women needing men, and the narrative voice makes a firm point about Miss Climpson not being a Natural Spinster, whatever that might be. It's difficult to judge how much of the subtext is intended, and how much it's simply meant to imply that Mary Whittaker was unnatural (she's also portrayed as trying to seduce Peter Wimsey, and making a bad job of it because she clearly loathes touching him). Mostly this only serves to make an already depressing book even more so.
*
Team Maripose, Blogathon 2010. Sponsor me!