Reading the Detectives discussion

This is a spoiler thread for our extra read, a book of short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers. This includes two Lord Peter Wimsey stories (the first two in the volume) which are, "In the Teeth of the Evidence," and "Absolutely Elsewhere." If you post here, or read this thread, it will be assumed that you have finished the book and plot spoilers can be posted.

The plot of the first story is very clever - it seems far-fetched, but drew on real-life inspiration!.

Near the end of the story, Wimsey mentions two real-life cases, Rouse and Furnace - there's a very interesting bit about this on Bill Peschel's 'Annotating Wimsey' website.

http://planetpeschel.com/the-wimsey-a...

If you scroll down to note 374 you can read about the two cases, which both involved plots very similar to the murder in the story - although I do still wonder if faking the teeth would really be possible?!

That's interesting, Judy. I thought it was interesting the way the wife is described too - as though a man cannot be blamed for resorting to any lengths to evade his nagging wife. Apparently, including murder...

Yes, very true - I was taken aback at the coroner criticising her at the inquest ! Just struck me I've read a GA novel with a rather similar dental plot twist, but I won't say which book this was, to avoid spoilers! It was published the same year so likely to be a coincidence.

There was a lot of eye-rolling and sarcastic comments too. I was surprised that Dorothy L. Sayers wrote that really, considering she was female. Not one for the sisterhood, obviously! Or, perhaps, just reflecting life at the time?

In general I feel that she does have a lot of feminist attitudes for the 1930s, when you look at the portrayal of Harriet for instance - but not in this story, I agree.

Yes, that's why I was so surprised. Harriet, as you say, is a very feminist character in many ways.

Just came across an amusing short article about Montague Egg at the Clerical Detectives site. Apparently there are lots of religious in-jokes/puns in the portrayal of this character - sounds as if Sayers must have had fun thinking these up.

I've put this in the spoiler thread because the article does give away plot points from some of the stories starring Monty - but if you haven't read them yet, you could always just read the top part of the article!

http://www.detecs.org/egg.html

Thanks, Judy. Very interesting.