Whose Body? (Hardcover)

Thus begins Dorothy Sayer's first novel in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. Partly a satire of the British upper class, partly a comedy of manners, and mostly the first of a time honored series of detective novels that very nearly reinvented the British mystery story in the 1920's. Lord Peter is the second son of the current generation of the Dukes of Denver, his rather stuffy brother currently holding the title. Lately recovered from some harrowing war experiences and a badly ended relationship, he has come to be an amateur detective as a way to gain a new focus in life. Wimsey is intelligent, only occasionally serious, and a perfect image of the English gentleman.

Accompanying Lord Peter is his most excellent manservant Bunter, who served with him in the war and has become a loyal and true companion. Bunter is the straight man for many of Wimsey's quips and quotes, but has a wry wit of his own, and is probably the first forensic photographer in detective fiction. Lord Peter's other aide in this and ensuing tales is Inspector Parker who is of the same age and equally bright in his own right. A man after my own heart, Parker reads theology for entertainment. While the detection style has much of the same cerebral quality which mark many of Holmes' adventures, Wimsey and his companions are far more accessible than the 'Consulting Detective.'

Sayer's has a unique ability to do caricature, creating little gemlike performances for each of the people who parade through her stories. Be they somewhat dull policemen to distinguished surgeons, nobody is unmemorable. The wonderful characters, and Wimsey's own unique charms are very much the reasons that ''Whose Body' and the rest of the tales remain rereadable long after the plot has been completely memorized. Hopefully, you are a reader newly come to the world of Lord Peter and can look forward to the delights of this discovery. Dorothy Sayers is very much in a class by herself, both in terms of her own achievements and because of the history of her most remarkable invention, Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey.

The plot deals with the discovery of a body being found in an architects bathtub. At the same time, a Jewish financeier disappears. Is it this man who is in the tub? Lord Peter tries to find out, with the aid of his valet Bunter, and his police officer side-kick Parker. We are also introduced to his Mother the dowager duchess, who we will see again in later works.

As the novel moves along, the reader discovers that the body was given a shave, and a manicure after death. This leads to more questions, and the plot basically unfolds at this point.

The issue of anti-semitism has also been brought up in several other reviews. Sayers does seem to have some rather gratuitous anti-semitic remarks in the context of the novel, that have no bearing on plot or character development. That aside, this is an excellent first attempt on her part to write a novel in this genre. Her work only gets better from here.

Although Lord Peter Wimsey is here perhaps too bright and breezy, he proves to be an entertaining companion to crime, despite his suffering from conscience. He enjoys the detection, "but if it comes to really running down a live person and getting him hanged, or even quodded, poor devil, there don't seem as if there was any excuse for me buttin' in, since I don't have to make my livin' by it. And I feel as if I oughtn't ever to find it amusin'. But I do." The reader, who has no conscience to worry him, enjoys the whole thing without needing to consult their consciences, for the story is bright and amusing, well-written and often very funny, even if somewhat in the Wodehousian vein.

Although Lord Peter Wimsey is a vivid but undeveloped character, the rest of the characters are all quite vivid: the Dowager Duchess of Denver is an excellent character, and, by the standards of the day, Sayers seems to have not too much racism / anti-Semitism.

Despite all the humour, the serious business of detection is not neglected. Opening with the fine and striking idea of the body in the bathtub-rightly described as an "uncommon good incident for a detective story", and an interesting problem of identity-the trail gets more complicated with the disappearance of Sir Reuben Levy. The murderer's identity is revealed half-way through-a trait that would recur in later Sayers novels, and the pleasure of the second half of the book is in seeing an elaborate, ingenious, and often gory, plot unfold.

It is interesting to note that Sayers, an Anglo-Catholic, chose a scientist / atheist as her murderer, a villain who believes that "the knowledge of good and evil is an observed phenomenon, attendant upon a certain condition of the brain cells, which is removable..."-a belief striking at the very core of Christianity, and a belief leading the murderer to the belief that murder is a justifiable action. In this, Sayers resembles Chesterton, and, in particular, "The Wrong Shape". In Lord Peter Wimsey's realisation of the murderer's guilt, Christianity is again apparent, for Wimsey seems to solve the crime through receiving a divine revelation (although the clues are all there-detection from physical clues in the Thorndykean manner): "he remembered-not one thing, not another thing, nor a logical succession of things, but everything-the whole thing, perfect, complete, in all its dimensions as it were and instantaneously; as if he stood outside the world and saw it suspended in infinitely dimensional space. He no longer needed to reason about it, or even to think about it. He knew it."

An excellent first attempt at the detective story, and the reader can agree with Wimsey that although "this is only a blinkin' old shillin' shocker ... we're up against a criminal-the criminal-the real artist and blighter with imagination-real, artistic, finished stuff. I'm enjoying this."