Other editions of book Whose Body?: The First Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery

Annotator Caroline Miniscule is also an author - her science fiction novels The Labyrinth Makers and The Coldest Equations are also available on the Kindle, as well as The Powder Puff Derby Puzzle and The Lady and the Tiger...Moth.Whose Body, the first adventure of Lord Peter Wimsey, was published over 80 years ago, in 1923. When we first meet Wimsey, he'sintent on acquiring a Folio Dante, a book by de Voragine called Golden Legend, published by Wynkyn de Worde, and The Four Sons of Aymon. Has Dorothy Sayers made up these works, or do they actually exist? (They do.)Why does Peter praise his mother by calling her a "brick"? Why, because of a Greek story in which King Lycurgus of Sparta is asked why there are no defensive walls around the city. He pointed to a soldier and said, "There are Sparta's walls, and every soldier a brick."In this annotated edition of Whose Body, we explain every reference Sayers makes, from the French Wimsey speaks to the songs he sings to the books he acquires. The annotations are in bold, right below the sentence in which the referenced word or phrase appears. In this way, the reader can skim over any bolded annotations in which he or she has no interest, and continue with the story.But that's not all! Once you've read through the annotated edition, you'll find the novel itself again, at no extra cost!No admirer of Dorothy Sayer's Lord Peter Wimsey, or fans of classic detective novels, or "dated death," as we like to call them, can be without this book!

There's a corpse in the bathtub, wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez spectacles. Enter Lord Peter Wimsey, the original gentleman sleuth. Urged to investigate by his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, Lord Peter quickly ascertains that the sudden disappearance of a well-known financier is in some way connected to the body in the bathroom. But discovering exactly which way they're related leads the amateur detective on a merry chase. Written by a master of the detective story, this atmospheric tale abounds in the cozy delights of an English murder mystery. Dorothy L. Sayers ranks with Agatha Christie as a defining author of the genre. A novelist, essayist, and medieval scholar, Sayers was among the first women to receive an Oxford degree, and her translations of Dante remain in wide circulation. This novel marks the debut of her most popular creation, Lord Peter Wimsey, whose continuing adventures unfold amid the lively world of upper-crust British society in the 1920s.

"Whose Body" is something of an apprentice work. Lord Peter is here more a bundle of characteristics than a character: a collector of rare books and incunabula, facile with quotations, fluent in French and probably in Latin, a skillful and sensitive pianist who never needs to practise, slightly built but possessed of "curious" strength and speed which he maintains without exercise. Over subsequent books, this caricature smooths and deepens into one of the most interesting and attractive detectives in fiction.In spite of its awkwardness, Whose Body is worth reading. The plot is clever, the villain is believable and sadistic, and most of the supporting characters are a delight. Some of these characters are further developed in later novels: Bunter, Parker, the Dowager Duchess, Freddy Arbuthnot. Others fortunately are not. Sayers is much better with people she might recognise as "like us" then with people from other social groups.

"Whose Body" is something of an apprentice work. Lord Peter is here more a bundle of characteristics than a character: a collector of rare books and incunabula, facile with quotations, fluent in French and probably in Latin, a skillful and sensitive pianist who never needs to practise, slightly built but possessed of "curious" strength and speed which he maintains without exercise. Over subsequent books, this caricature smooths and deepens into one of the most interesting and attractive detectives in fiction.In spite of its awkwardness, Whose Body is worth reading. The plot is clever, the villain is believable and sadistic, and most of the supporting characters are a delight. Some of these characters are further developed in later novels: Bunter, Parker, the Dowager Duchess, Freddy Arbuthnot. Others fortunately are not. Sayers is much better with people she might recognise as "like us" then with people from other social groups.

Wimsey's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, telephones to say that Thipps, an architect hired to do some work on her local church, has just found a dead body wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez in the bath in his London flat. The official investigator, Inspector Sugg, suspects Thipps and his servant; Wimsey starts his own enquiry. Sir Reuben Levy, a famous financier, has disappeared from his own bedroom, and there has been a flurry of trading in some Peruvian oil shares. Inspector Parker, Wimsey's friend, is investigating this.The corpse in the bath is not Levy, but Wimsey becomes convinced that the two are linked. The trail leads to the teaching hospital near the architect's flat, and to surgeon and neurologist Sir Julian Freke, who is based there. Wimsey discovers that Freke murdered Sir Reuben and staged his 'disappearance' from home, having borne a grudge for years over Lady Levy, who chose to marry Sir Reuben rather than him. He also engineered the trading in oil shares, to lure Sir Reuben to his death. He dismembered Sir Reuben and gave him to his students to dissect, substituting his body for that of a pauper donated to the hospital for that purpose, who bore a superficial resemblance to Sir Reuben. The pauper's body, washed, shaved and manicured, was then carried over the roofs and dumped in Thipps' bath as a joke. Freke's belief that conscience and guilt are inconvenient physiological aberrations, which may be cut out and discarded, is an explanation for his conduct. He attempts to murder both Parker and Wimsey, and finally tries suicide when his actions are discovered, but is arrested in time.

Whose Body? is a 1923 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, which introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey. Lord Peter is intrigued by the sudden appearance of a naked body in the bath of an architect, and investigates. A noted financier has also gone missing under strange circumstances, and as the case progresses it becomes clear that the two events are linked in some way… (wikipedia.org)

There's a corpse in the bathtub, wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez spectacles. Enter Lord Peter Wimsey, the original gentleman sleuth. Urged to investigate by his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, Lord Peter quickly ascertains that the sudden disappearance of a well-known financier is in some way connected to the body in the bathroom. But discovering exactly which way they're related leads the amateur detective on a merry chase.

"Whose Body" is something of an apprentice work. Lord Peter is here more a bundle of characteristics than a character: a collector of rare books and incunabula, facile with quotations, fluent in French and probably in Latin, a skillful and sensitive pianist who never needs to practise, slightly built but possessed of "curious" strength and speed which he maintains without exercise. Over subsequent books, this caricature smooths and deepens into one of the most interesting and attractive detectives in fiction.In spite of its awkwardness, Whose Body is worth reading. The plot is clever, the villain is believable and sadistic, and most of the supporting characters are a delight. Some of these characters are further developed in later novels: Bunter, Parker, the Dowager Duchess, Freddy Arbuthnot. Others fortunately are not. Sayers is much better with people she might recognise as "like us" then with people from other social groups.

Rest easy: Lord Peter Wimsey (and Bunter) are on the case. In this first criminal investigation by the dandyish nobleman, a key clue turns on the ethnic identity of the murder victim.The stark naked body was lying in the tub. Not unusual for a proper bath, but highly irregular for murder -- especially with a pair of gold pince-nez deliberately perched before the sightless eyes. What's more, the face appeared to have been shaved after death. The police assumed that the victim was a prominent financier, but Lord Peter Wimsey, who dabbled in mystery detection as a hobby, knew better. In this, his first murder case, Lord Peter untangles the ghastly mystery of the corpse in the bath.

From Dorothy L. Sayers, “one of the greatest mystery story writers of the [twentieth] century” (Los Angeles Times), the first mystery featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.A corpse has been found in the bath of an architect's flat, wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez. A financier has seemingly vanished into thin air from his bedroom.The ever-curious Lord Peter Wimsey is intrigued by these odd events. Ignoring the clumsy efforts of the official investigator looking into the death, the aristocratic amateur sleuth, accompanied by his valet, Bunter, a skilled photographer, begins his own inquiry. The gentleman detective soon becomes convinced that the two cases are somehow linked. Now, he must uncover the connection—and the investigation quickly begins to bleed into his own life, stirring up dark memories of World War I that will have unexpected consequences for Wimsey and the faithful Bunter.