The Nine Tailors by Dorothy L. Sayers Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of The Nine Tailors
Book Review: One of my favorite books -- characters you love, graceful story, intriguing mystery
Summary: 5 Stars
Probably Dorothy Sayers' best novel, considered by many to be one of the top 2-3 mystery works of all time. Beautiful writing--literature vs. simply a plot vehicle. The characters of Lord Peter Wimsey and Bunter really come alive, and you fall in love with them.
Wonderful depiction of English country life, too. The solution of the mystery is original, unexpected, and completely satisfying. The final section of the book is very moving. This book is a pleasure on all levels. Those who enjoy it but have not yet read other Wimsey books may want to try Strong Poison next, as it tells the story of Lord Peter's love for Harriet Vane. That story arch eventually leads to my favorite Dorothy Sayers book, Busman's Honeymoon.
No gory CSI stuff here-- just beautiful writing, thoughtful plotting, an intriguing mystery, and beloved characters whose adventures continue in other great books.
Book Review: One of the great novels of the century
Summary: 5 Stars
It's a cliche to say that something "transcends its genre." However, any time I want to point to an example, I use The Nine Tailors. Sayers' best novel is far more than just a mystery novel. It is well written, with great characters, atmosphere, and a sense of place that rivals the best of Thomas Hardy. Even if you don't like mystery novels, you should read The Nine Tailors.Book Review: Perhaps the finest of Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.
Summary: 5 Stars
Unlike some of her Lord Peter mysteries, this novel can be read by itself, and it is a delight. About a murder done in an old church in the English countryside, you will learn more about the ringing of church bells than you thought possible. Lord Peter is at the top of his form, literate, intelligent, and a thinker beyond being just a mystery novel detective. None of the characters are one or two dimensional, and each of them is developed fully and delightfully. When it comes to mystery fiction, you can't do much better than Sayers...which may be one reason her novels appeared on PBS' MASTERPIECE THEATRE rather than MYSTERY! They are indeed, masterpiecesBook Review: Peter and Bunter take a detour
Summary: 5 Stars
While driving along a country road during a New Year's Eve snowstorm Lord Peter Wimsey slid into a ditch stranding him and the everfaithful Bunter in the village of Fenchurch St. Paul in the middle of the fen country. Soon Peter is caught up in village life, filling in for a missing bell ringer, hearing stories of old scandals and naturally a body appears. Before the novel ends nearly a year later, Peter solves mysteries both old and new, rights a few wrongs, restores a fortune and acquires a ward.
The story is another installment in the LORD PETER series, set during the 1930's in England. Both Bunter and Insp. Parker appear briefly, a few other old friends are mentioned but this is most definitely Peter's story. The descriptions of the low-lying fen country and village life are a main attraction here. The people and countryside come to life in Sayers' hand. The rather obscure and complicated art of English bell ringing is described at length and is a bit of destraction to the story. Still the rest of the tale is so good that it more than makes up for this.
This is a must-read for LORD PETER fans, and while there are better places to begin the series a new reader would not be at a total loss to start here. Fans of the English cosy or Sherlock Holmes would also enjoy this one.
Book Review: Review
Summary: 5 Stars
This novel, Dorothy L. Sayers' best-known, is, without doubt, one of her best-if not the best. Sayers takes the customary English village, and makes something new of it, by setting it in the Fen country, and by giving to it a church, which, as the well-drawn rector describes, "East Anglia is famous for the size and splendour of its parish churches. Still, we flatter ourselves we are almost unique, even in this part of the world." The church services show great feeling and power, and neatly tie in with the theme of religion. The church possesses bells, the book being best-known for the bell-ringing, described in such powerfully beautiful descriptions as:"Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvres of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells-little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul."
The bells are also eerily threatening-"Bells are like cats and mirrors-they're always queer, and it doesn't do to think too much about them."-which is fitting, as the plot hinges on bells: both an ingenious cryptogram (again, to quote the rector, "I should never have thought of the possibility that one might make a cipher out of change-ringing. Most ingenious."), and an ingenious murder method.
The whodunit aspect of the story is not neglected; for once, it is a genuine problem. The body is buried in a grave, and involves a complicated problem of identity, and an unknown method. The victim, as Wimsey describes, is "a perfect nuisance, dead or alive, and whoever killed him was a public benefactor. I wish I'd killed him myself." Wimsey is engaging here, and not the parody of Bertie Wooster he sometimes is-he is a human being, without being the equally obnoxious creature found in Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon. The detection is excellent, and, as was to be the trend in nearly every detective story following (especially Nicholas Blake's), the detective "felt depressed. So far as he could see, his interference had done no good to anybody and only made extra trouble. It was a thousand pities that the body of Deacon had ever come to light at all. Nobody wanted it." These tie in with the burden of guilt and innocence, redemption and repentance.
Finally, the book comes to its powerful climax in a flooded village, "with an aching and intolerable melancholy, like the noise of the bells of a drowned city pushing up through the overwhelming sea."
This is not a detective story-this is, if anything, a novel.