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*she's here again awww she loves spending time with Five*

Hello.

Hello again J. I feel like I see you a lot recently.

#five is reading #five xfohv #xfohv

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers

Date Published: 1923

Nationality of author: British, White

Category: Fiction

Genre: Mystery

Date finished: April 2026

Rating: EOTUTNOETFN

Interesting topics: Dorothy Sayer's life, the history of the Golden Age of detective literature, and intersectionality between gender and ethnicity. The book was quite Anti-Semetic at times, especially at the beginning, but ultimately the murdered man (who was Jewish) is depicted as a good husband and a sympathetic person. Ultimately, I feel unqualified to comment too much on the complexities of this issue as I do not have enough knowledge on the matter, but I didn't want to leave it unsaid as many reviews I'm looking at seem to.

Notes: This book was FANTASTIC. The mystery, plot, prose, and intrigue were a fine-tuned symphony, but the star of the show was the CHARACTERS. Every single one, no matter how small, or how many scenes they were in, felt so alive I could practically hear them breathe off the page. I found this a sharp contrast to the other Queen of Crime, Agatha Christie, who typically used very simple characters but made the mystery airtight. Sayers might take a few liberties with her mysteries, but her character work is impeccable. The murderer was plotting and conniving, but grounded in reality. Bunter (my beloved), the loyal butler was delightful in every scene and kind of stole the show. I love him dearly. And the whole book is built nicely upon the detective, a man as charming and delightful as his name.

Lord Peter Wimsey is such a wonderful character, and a wonderful person. His quirks and eccentricities are paired with a sharp intellect and easygoing humility, all masked nicely with confidence and charm. He was an unusual kind of detective, an amateur who has lots of other hobbies and a whole life outside of this work. I'm used to Sherlock Holmeses who become so entrenched in their cases that they lose themselves in them. They forget niceties and politeness in pursuit of an ultimate goal. Wimsey is not like that. He lies somewhere between Poirot and Miss Marple, being a lover of the finer things in life, getting out on the ground and investigating the scenes personally, and using human psychology and forensic evidence in equal measure in his analysis. I'm in a class about detective literature right now, and he's definitely the hardest detective to categorize into a neat little archetype imo. I cannot wait to read more from him.

The book almost felt like a detective story about detective stories. It was very meta at times. The part about assembling clues into a complete case being like looking at a word scramble was so interesting! Another very interesting thing was the commentary of the ways murderers can reveal themselves, and how either an abundance of caution, fear, or arrogance causes them to make misjudgments that ultimately give away their game. I highly recommend this book if you love detective stories as much as I do.

Minor spoilers for Whose Body? and a pretty big but well known spoiler for the rest of the LPW and Harriet Vane mysteries!