Other editions of book Whose Body?

Amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey is intrigued by the sudden appearance of a naked corpse - wearing only a pair of pince-nez - in an architect's bathtub. Meanwhile, an unrelated banker is is reported missing, last seen leaving his house completely nude! As Peter investigates, he discovers the death and the disappearance are very related indeed. As clues amass and become more and more strange, will Lord Peter Wimsey be able to solve the mystery?Whose Body? is the first book in Dorothy L Sayers acclaimed Lord Peter Wimsey series.“Part of the Golden Age of mystery writers . . . Sayers is often credited as the most intelligent of them all”—The Guardian

Whose Body? Is perhaps the greatest first novels every written. In it Dorothy L. Sayers introduces us to her brilliant detective Lord Peter Wimsey. Lord Peter receives a call from his mother, Dowager Duchess of Denver, telling him that there is a dead man in his her architects bathtub. She urges him to investigate and one of the grandest mysteries ever written ensues.

A naked body is discovered in the bathroom of a London architect's apartment. Is it Sir Reuben Levy, the well-known financier who recently disappeared? Or is it a stiff dragged from the dissecting rooms of St. Luke's Hospital? Lord Peter Wimsey must unravel the tangled threads that lead from a prostitute, to a well-known surgeon, and to a mysterious reunion at a London night-club

“Oh; damn!” said Lord Peter Wimsey at Piccadilly Circus. “Hi; driver!”The taxi man; irritated at receiving this appeal while negotiating the intricacies of turning into Lower Regent Street across the route of a 19 ’bus; a 38-B and a bicycle; bent an unwilling ear.“I’ve left the catalogue behind;” said Lord Peter deprecatingly. “Uncommonly careless of me. D’you mind puttin’ back to where we came from?”“To the Savile Club; sir?”“No—110 Piccadilly—just beyond—thank you.”“Thought you was in a hurry;” said the man; overcome with a sense of injury.

Whose Body? is a 1923 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, in which she introduced the character of Lord Peter Wimsey. Thipps, an architect, finds a dead body wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez in the bath of his London flat. Lord Peter Wimsey—a nobleman who has recently developed an interest in criminal investigation as a hobby—resolves to investigate the matter privately. Leading the official investigation is Inspector Sugg, who suggests that the body may be that of the famous financier Sir Reuben Levy, who disappeared from his bedroom in mysterious circumstances the night before. Sir Reuben's disappearance is in the hands of Inspector Charles Parker, a friend of Wimsey's. Although the body in the bath superficially resembles that of Sir Reuben, it quickly becomes clear that it is not him, and it appears that the cases may be unconnected. Wimsey joins Parker in his investigation...

First published in 1923,this novel by Dorothy L. Sayers 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.

The body had been removed a few hours previously, and when the bathroom and the whole flat had been explored by the naked eye and the camera of the competent Bunter, it became evident that the real problem of the household was old Mrs. Thipps. Her son and servant had both been removed, and it appeared that they had no friends in town, beyond a few business acquaintances of Thipps’s, whose very addresses the old lady did not know. The other flats in the building were occupied respectively by a family of seven, at present departed to winter abroad, an elderly Indian colonel of ferocious manners, who lived alone with an Indian man-servant, and a highly respectable family on the third floor, whom the disturbance over their heads had outraged to the last degree. The husband, indeed, when appealed to by Lord Peter, showed a little human weakness, but Mrs. Appledore, appearing suddenly in a warm dressing-gown, extricated him from the difficulties into which he was carelessly wandering.“I am sorry,” she said, “I’m afraid we can’t interfere in any way. This is a very unpleasant business, Mr.— I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name, and we have always found it better not to be mixed up with the police. Of course, if the Thippses are innocent, and I am sure I hope they are, it is very unfortunate for them, but I must say that the circumstances seem to me most suspicious, and to Theophilus too, and I should not like to have it said that we had assisted murderers. We might even be supposed to be accessories. Of course you are young, Mr.—”“This is Lord Peter Wimsey, my dear,” said Theophilus mildly. She was unimpressed.“Ah, yes,” she said, “I believe you are distantly related to my late cousin, the Bishop of Carisbrooke. Poor man! He was always being taken in by impostors; he died without ever learning any better. I imagine you take after him, Lord Peter.”“I doubt it,” said Lord Peter. “So far as I know he is only a connection, though it’s a wise child that knows its own father. I congratulate you, dear lady, on takin’ after the other side of the family. You’ll forgive my buttin’ in upon you like this in the middle of the night, though, as you say, it’s all in the family, and I’m sure I’m very much obliged to you, and for permittin’ me to admire that awfully fetchin’ thing you’ve got on. Now, don’t you worry, Mr. Appledore. I’m thinkin’ the best thing I can do is to trundle the old lady down to my mother and take her out of your way, otherwise you might be findin’ your Christian feelin’s gettin’ the better of you some fine day, and there’s nothin’ like Christian feelin’s for upsettin’ a man’s domestic comfort. Good-night, sir—good-night, dear lady—it’s simply rippin’ of you to let me drop in like this.”“Well!” said Mrs. Appledore, as the door closed behind him.- Taken from "Whose Body?" written by Dorothy L. Sayers

Ian Carmichael is Lord Peter Wimsey, with Patricia Routledge as his mother, in this BBC radio full-cast dramatization. Wimsey's mother has heard through a friend that Mr. Thipps, a respectable Battersea architect, found a dead man in his bath, wearing nothing but a gold pince-nez. Lord Wimsey makes his way straight over to Mr. Thipps, and a good look at the body raises a number of interesting questions. Why would such an apparantly well-groomed man have filthy black toenails, flea bites and the scent of carbolic soap lingering on his corpse? Then comes the disappearance of oil millionaire Sir Reuben Levy, last seen on the Battersea Park Road. With his beard shaved he would look very similar to the man found in the bath—but is Sir Levy really dead?