Whose Body? is a 1923 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, in which she introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey.
This procedural detective novel was hugely disappointing. I had hoped this famous series would start with a bang rather than a whimper. There were sections of the novel where a spreadsheet was required to layout and understand the clues; they were all but incomprehensible as prose.
I'll try another Sayer's novel in the series in hope of improvement. My recommendation for this book is to suggest "a hard pass".
I wanted to like this so much, but I'm afraid I went in expecting Agatha and no one can hold a candle to her.
Lord Peter is annoying. There, I said it. He drove me nuts with the way he spoke, too. But you know who I did enjoy? Bunter. He's going to make me read book 2. The mystery was ok, with Lord Peter creating a bunch of red herrings, mostly in his mind, and the characters are all pretty well drawn.
It's a 2.5 star start for me, but I will round up because Bunter is one of my favorite new characters.
I have a hard time to put away a book I don’t like, to stop reading it feels like admitting defeat. I know that I won’t finish it but I won’t admit it and I try to read, for months, and then I give it up.
We were watching a quiz show my dad and I and he got the question “Who wrote the books about Lord Peter Wimsey?” right and I was pretty impressed by that. Dad said he knew because grandma used to read them. So I wanted to read these books, but I won’t because the first one was putting me to sleep. I would love to have a cup of tea with my grandma and ask her what it is about the books that she likes, maybe she could convince me to give it another try? I wish I had known my grandma better, I wish …
I have a hard time to put away a book I don’t like, to stop reading it feels like admitting defeat. I know that I won’t finish it but I won’t admit it and I try to read, for months, and then I give it up.
We were watching a quiz show my dad and I and he got the question “Who wrote the books about Lord Peter Wimsey?” right and I was pretty impressed by that. Dad said he knew because grandma used to read them. So I wanted to read these books, but I won’t because the first one was putting me to sleep. I would love to have a cup of tea with my grandma and ask her what it is about the books that she likes, maybe she could convince me to give it another try? I wish I had known my grandma better, I wish she was still around. I think I would have appreciated her more now when I’m older.
It's a light text with an 'okay' mystery and a heck of a gravity problem - very hard to pick up, easy to put down. Sayers misses the mark by failing to include anything interesting about any of her characters until the mid-point of the novel. Once Lord Peter gathers some substance about him, the story becomes more interesting even if the mystery is not improved.
It doesn't inspire me to read further in the series.
