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Title: Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers ISBN: 0-06-104350-8 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: April, 1995 Format: Mass Market Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.6 (15 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: The beginning of a wonderful series of romance/mysteries
Comment: Harriet Vane, an author of mysteries, is on trial for the murder of her former lover. Amateur detective and wealthy nobleman, Lord Peter Whimsey attends the trial and becomes convinced of that the defendant is innocent. During the trial Lord Peter becomes infatuated with Harriet, not because of her appearance but because of her intelligence, poise and personality. A hung jury gives Lord Peter time to search for the real killer.
Agatha Christie may have a slight edge over Dorothy Sayers in the creation of plots and puzzles, but Ms. Sayers has the edge in the use of language and in the creation of vivid characters. Lord Peter is a delightful detective. His romance with Harriet Vane continues through four wonderful books which should be read in sequence. If you like good writing, mystery and romance, you will love this series of books.
Rating: 4
Summary: the start of a saga
Comment: Dorothy L. Sayers remains the finest of the early 20th century mystery writers: unusually erudite, she earned one of the first english degrees awarded to a woman at Oxford University. Eclectic enough to have written a definitive translation of Dante's Divina Comedia, her detective novels are shot through with quotations from a who's who of english literature.
Sayers loved language and her characters display this love with brilliance. In this novel, her favorite sleuth, the curiously human Lord Peter Wimsey, engages himself for the first time with Harriet Vane, whom he discovers on trial for her life for murdering her lover. Convinced at once of her innocence, he sets out to prove it. A hung jury gives him the opportunity, and Sayer's great skill in plotting brings Miss Vane out of prison, but unfortunately for Wimsey not (yet) into his arms. He has, of course, become hopelessly besotted with her.
Some reviewers describe Harriet Vane as unlikable -- there's little douibt that Sayers put much of her own sometimes awkward personality into Harriet. However, she is a genuinely interesting and surprisingly real character, and without question an early feminist.
The book is entirely satisfying in its own right, with particularly telling passages about spiritualism (an obsession of the time). Sayers' Miss Climpson, another fascinating character, a spinster who aids Wimsey in his detective work and philanthropy, uses spiritualism to elicit the motive for the murder and ultimately the responsible party.
It is also noteworthy for introducing the series of novels about Wimsey and Harriet Vane that includes Have His Carcase (the least satisfying), Gaudy Night (the first great feminist novel of the 20th century) and Busman's Honeymoon. Jill Paton Walsh, no mean novelist herself, completed a Sayers manuscript much more recently for Thrones and Dominations, a competent additional chapter in Peter and Harriet's lives.
Sayers was an extraordinary woman and an extraordinary writer -- in Wimsey and Harriet Vane, she connected her ideal man (Wimsey) with her alter ego, (Harriet). Strong Poison is the start of a sequence of highly intelligent, beautifully written novels that happen to be mysteries.
Rating: 4
Summary: An independent woman in danger of the rope.
Comment: This novel opens fairly abruptly at the end of a murder trial.
We're in England in the 1920's . It's not an easy time to be an independent woman but Harriet Vane is doing pretty well as a writer of who-dun-its. Her private life, though, is clouded by an affair she has had with the conceited novelist Philip Boyes.
Boyes was killed by arsenic; Harriet had bought arsenic; she's apparently the only person who the opportunity to adminster it and now she's in grave danger of hanging.
To Harriet's eternal good fortune, the celebrated Lord Peter Wimsey has been struck down by love at first sight - not only does he want to prove her innocence, he wants to marry her...
This is an excellent tale, and I have read it several times with pleasure. The dialogue is good, the plot keeps your attention throughout and the period detail adds to the enjoyment.
For a 21st century reader it throws a light on the life of single women in the 1920s - especially as seen by the indomitable Miss Climpson, one of Lord Peter's associates:
"I had no difficulty getting a comfortable room at the Station Hotel , late as it was. In the old days, an unmarried woman arriving alone at midnight with a suitcase would hardly have been considered respectable - what a wonderful difference one finds today!"
If you want to explore the novels of Dorothy L Sayers, this seems a good place to start.
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Title: Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers ISBN: 0061043524 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $7.99 |
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Title: Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers ISBN: 0061043494 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers ISBN: 0061043516 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: April, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers ISBN: 0061043559 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $6.99 |
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Title: Clouds of Witness by Dorothy L. Sayers ISBN: 0061043532 Publisher: HarperTorch Pub. Date: June, 1995 List Price(USD): $5.99 |
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