(no subject)

[skygiants]

I found In the Teeth of the Evidence at a used bookstore when I was still in the midst of my Sayers reread, and bought it because it contained a bunch of Sayers stories that (to the best of my recollection) I had not read and I figured I might as well.

These are ... not Sayers' greatest works. The first seven stories feature Lord Peter Wimsey and Sayers' other recurring detective, traveling salesman Montague Egg; they're all very much of the Solve A Brain-Twister In Four Pages variety and are otherwise not very interesting. Also, Montague Egg is the sort of person who goes around quoting maxims like "Never miss a chance of learning for that word spells '£' plus 'earning,'" and, like, on the one hand, I respect Sayers for resisting the temptation to make her other detective as Dreamy as Lord Peter, but on the other hand.

I found the back half of stories easier going; they were not any better per se but at least there was more variety? Stories included:

- Reporters Mistake Dead Fish For Dead Body
- Area Man Makes Up Imaginary Trolley Problem To Make Previous Trolley Problem Decider Feel Better About Himself ("the young medico had had to choose between saving the papers and the sodden old fool of a butler [...] he explained that he believed the previous manuscripts to be of immense value to humanity, whereas he knew no particular good of the butler")
- Author Launches Anonymous Threatening Letters Campaign To Get Publisher To Buy His Book, Today In "Worst Ideas Ever"
- Murder Confession Triggered By Overenthusiastic Game of Charades
- Maidservant Thinks She's Wandered Into A Gothic Novel; Is Comically Wrong
- Artist Is Mad About Selling Out; Also, Not Technically Murder
- The Poisoner Was The Wife All Along! WHO COULD HAVE SEEN IT COMING
- Area Man Accidentally Hires A Sinister Murder Cabal
- CAT PEOPLE. I'm not kidding, this one has straight-up were-cats. Why isn't there a Lord Peter Wimsey novel with were-cats?! Dorothy, you're holding out on us!

ETA: I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT THE ONE WHERE A MILD-MANNERED HAIRDRESSER DYES A MURDERER'S HAIR GREEN, that was my favorite one besides cat people!!

Comments

[sovay]

CAT PEOPLE. I'm not kidding, this one has straight-up were-cats.

Would you mind describing this one in more detail? I thought I had read most of Sayers' short fiction and I do not remember the were-cats.

[agonistes]

Why isn't there a Lord Peter Wimsey novel with were-cats?! Dorothy, you're holding out on us!

oh man, and then Peter could have been their king and his code name would have been Tybalt and he could have gallivanted around England wearing cat ears and a swishy cape ;_____________;

[alias_sqbr]

I am sure I have read that book of short stories but can't remember any of them, I don't know how I forgot the werecats. The only Wimsey short story that stuck in my mind is "His wife: a chair" (Alas, not a werechair)

[cyphomandra]

I am fond of this collection because it's the first Sayers I bought (when I was a small person with a small income), from a school fair, and with a suitably lurid and unrelated cover (this one). But yes, the stories themselves are somewhat lacking. I do quite like the hairdresser, and she is good at overheated atmospheres of suspicion and incipient nervous breakdowns. I also sometimes think grumpily about how I am not a printer when I am writing in capitals (which I do mainly to ensure someone else can actually read it), pace Montague Egg.

(my parents had a rather biased selection of Sayers; unhelpfully for Harriet, they were missing Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night, which meant I was a little bit confused by references to her until I caught up).

[snickfic]

How would that maxim even working when spoken aloud, I wonder? I am skeptical.