The Nine Tailors

I have some serious mixed feelings about The Nine Tailors.  On one hand it’s a cracking murder mystery- always a joy; on the other there’s a lot of talk about bell ringing.  Turns out that campanology is no longer en vogue for some very good reasons.  Dorothy L Sayers really went to town on the accuracy (I assume she did, at least, I have neither the knowledge nor the inclination to verify any bell related information).  Lord Peter Wimsey also seems to know the art inside and out, despite professing to by only an amateur.  You’d think he’d be all warn out from designing the super successful cigarette advertising campaign in his previous adventure.

The story couldn’t be a further cry from Murder Must Advertise, rather than a slick office full of hard working, fast talking gals; it’s set in the middle of the great East Anglian nothingness.  The high point of the gossip’s still a robbery that happened twenty years ago and all but bankrupted the local lord of the manor Henry Thorpe.  When Thorpe dies, four months after his wife, he grave is re-opened and a mutilated corpse is discovered.  Enter Peter Wimsey.  It being a whodunit, there’s not much more I can say without giving it away.  There are frequent references to Sherlock Holmes throughout the book and The Nine Tailors did remind me of Arthur Conan Doyle’s detective in a way that Sayers’s previous book didn’t.  The resolution actually reminded me of one story in particular; naturally to say which would be a massive spoiler.

The only part of the book that I wasn’t keen on, aside from those incessant bells, was the last chapter.  Lord Wimsey returns to Fenchurch St. Paul for Christmas after all is said and done.  The place then promptly floods. There’s a minor plot point which ties the last loose thread in to a ridiculous bow, so I appreciate what Sayers is trying to do, but for me it doesn’t work.  It actually removes one of the things I was really enjoying- the ambiguity and open-endedness.  It’s unnecessary and in many ways makes the story worse, even if this is simply because it denies the reader a happy ending.  I am more than willing to ignore the fact that murder was still punishable by hanging at the time this book was written.  As far as I’m concerned it fades to black when the criminal is carted off to prison.  Then it’s all sunshine and rainbows.  According to The Daily Mail, at least.

On the bright side, The Nine Tailors also features the fantastic Hilary Thorpe.  I have a lot of time for Hilary. She’s a bright young thing who is, quite frankly, far more insightful and better at sleuthing than Lord Peter.  It’s a shame she only features in a few scenes.  The book could have done with more of her wit and charm and less about the bells.  Although, considering how much she has her shit together her continued presence would have probably reduced a 374 page novel into a short story.  So, she’s bundled off to Oxford with her stuffy and disapproving uncle and we’re left with Lord Peter to restore her fortune and freedom.

Minor grievances aside, I did really enjoy this book.  It’s full of love for East Anglia in the same way that I am- name dropping the St Peter Mancroft church (which I do mostly love for its proximity to the library) whilst making jokes about the rampant incest in the area.  I feel like Sayers had the same attitude to the place that I do, even if she was far more into the fens than that cities.  I guess the crux of that issue, though, is simply that no interesting murders happen in Norwich.

I’ve just started Moon Palace by Paul Auster.  It’s slow going so far, but I think it might get fantastic.