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Book Review: Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers


Lord Peter Wimsey has fallen in love with the crime novelist Harriet Vane. Unfortunately, she is on trial for her life, accused of poisoning her former lover. Lord Peter, to demonstrate his love for her, sets about to prove Harriet is innocent before she faces a retrial.

Dorothy L. Sayers has often been called the best writer of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, but I have never found this. Her descriptive style is certainly better than Agatha Christie’s and Ngaio Marsh’s, but I find her plots and characters’ motivations so lacking. This novel is a prime example of this. There is no mystery as to who the killer is, there is only one other suspect here, and the how-he-did-it factor is not presented with enough mystery to hold the anticipation.

There some interesting elements here, the female detective agency that Wimsey occasionally uses should have been given their own novel, but these elements do not add up to an interesting whole. The premise is interesting, Harriet Vane on trial for murder, but Sayers begins this novel at the end of the trial, the judge’s summing up, we do not even get any degree of courtroom drama. Many of the working-class characters are uncomfortably deferent to the nobility. The biggest problem for me is at the heart of the novel, Wimsey himself. He’s a playboy detective, full of charm, though Sayers never explains where his detective skills come from. Is he so good at solving murders because he’s so upper class and therefore bred to be superior at everything or is it because Sayers’ mysteries are so easy to solve?

Not everyone is going to like every author. Many people have told me that Sayer is the greatest of the Golden Age crime writers but I have never seen how this is so, there are many other authors I’d read before her.

 

 

Find it here on Amazon

 

 

Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers.jpg

Edited by Drew Payne
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Zombie

Posted (edited)

I’ve only read one DLS novel - The Nine Tailors - which my dad recommended and I read years ago. Written in 1934 it’s of its time and the society depicted has to be accepted and enjoyed as such (ours will be equally harshly judged by future generations I’m sure ;)). The mystery is well constructed and intricate, and you won’t guess the murderer :funny: The bleak, flat fenland, mid-winter setting is ominously atmospheric, effectively a character itself. And how many murder mysteries have you read that are based around that ancient, quintessentially English and supposedly harmless activity of bellringing? :P
 

 

Edited by Zombie
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Drew Payne

Posted

  On 2/19/2022 at 1:18 PM, Zombie said:

I’ve only read one DLS novel - The Nine Tailors - which my dad recommended and I read years ago. Written in 1934 it’s of its time and the society depicted has to be accepted and enjoyed as such (ours will be equally harshly judged by future generations I’m sure ;)). The mystery is well constructed and intricate, and you won’t guess the murderer :funny: The bleak, flat fenland, mid-winter setting is ominously atmospheric, effectively a character itself. And how many murder mysteries have you read that are based around that ancient, quintessentially English and supposedly harmless activity of bellringing? :P
 

 

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I've read The Nine Tailors and it is certainly her best novel but I find so many problems with her books. I always found the biggest problem at the heart of her novels was Wimsey himself. Sayers was obviously very enamoured, if not in love, with him, but I've always found him such a weak character. He's stereotype of "aren't the aristocracy wonderful!"

I just found her plots and characterisation so lacking. So often there was no mystery to who the murder was and so often their motivation was unrealistic, even pitiful. Her descriptive powers were one of the best of most Golden Age writers but for me it is plot and characters that make a book readable.

So many people still say that Sayers is the best Golden Age writer and I cannot see why.

My favourite crime writers do remain PD James, Ruth Rendell and Joseph Hanson, and I owe a debt to Agatha Christie for teaching me to plot. I know not everyone will like the same writers, if we did this world would be a horrible dystopia, but I just find Sayers so lacking.

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Zombie

Posted

well there’s a reason Agatha Christie’s the best-selling novelist of all time :P

But even Christie plots are often unconvincing, for example the contrived motivation in The Sittaford Mystery, and filled with stock characters. Still, she had a winning formula that has endured and no-one else has matched while DLS heads towards the ranks of the forgotten

 

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Drew Payne

Posted

  On 2/20/2022 at 2:41 PM, Zombie said:

well there’s a reason Agatha Christie’s the best-selling novelist of all time :P

But even Christie plots are often unconvincing, for example the contrived motivation in The Sittaford Mystery, and filled with stock characters. Still, she had a winning formula that has endured and no-one else has matched while DLS heads towards the ranks of the forgotten

 

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I wouldn't say Christie had a formula, though she had a lot of tricks she used. Her books are game between her and her reader, can the reader guess the murder before she reveals them (I learnt so much about plotting from her). Though The Sittaford Mystery is by no means is her best, it isn't as bad as The Mirror Cracked From Side to Side. It had a good premise but the execution of it was so poor, Miss Maple was kept away from all the action.

Sayers doesn’t seem to being forgotten, not when all her books are still in print, not just e-books, and so many Golden Age fans still rave about her.

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