Reading Log: Complete Stories of Dorothy Sayers

A while back I posed a question about “literate genre fiction” to a list I belong to, specifically in the areas of mystery/suspense and scifi/speculative fiction and one of the people who responded said they “weren’t sure how literate they were, but the mystery stories of Dorothy Sayers sure are fun!” That’s a pretty accurate assessment of this collection of these short morsels. All but a few of the stories feature one of two detectives– the accustomed to fine things but not quite pretentious, Sherlock-like Lord Peter Wimsey, or Montague Egg, highly observant travelling salesman of fine wines who is always sharing maxims– usually rhyming– from The Salesman’s Handbook. For example: “Don’t trust to luck but be exact, and certify the smallest fact.” As long as you overlook the “Murder She Wrote problem– the fact that death seems to follow these characters everywhere they go and they are always in a unique position to solve them– the stories are charming and clever. And far more satisfying than many of the bloated, overwritten, bloody wrecks that fill the popular mystery shelves today.