Five Red Herrings: A classic in detective fiction (Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery, #8)

by Dorothy L Sayers

Lord Peter Wimsey's fishing holiday is interrupted in Dorothy L Sayers' classic crime novel, introduced by writer and reviewer Barry Forshaw - a must-read for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham's Campion Mysteries.

'One of the best detective story writers' Daily Telegraph

Lord Peter Wimsey could imagine the artist stepping back, the stagger, the fall, down to where the pointed rocks grinned like teeth.

But was it an accident - or murder? Six members of the close-knit Galloway artists' colony do not regret Campbell's death.

Five of them are red herrings.

'She brought to the detective novel originality, intelligence, energy and wit.' P. D. James

• ISBN10: 1473621356
• ISBN13: 9781473621350
• Publish Date: 25 August 2016 (first published 1 July 1958)
• Publish Status: Active
• Out of Print: 9 June 2023
• Publish Country: GB
• Publisher: Hodder & Stoughton
• Imprint: Hodder Paperback
• Format: Paperback (B-Format (198x129 mm))
• Pages: 384
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

Oof. Good stuff here, but suffers overmuch from: timetables, dialect (paragraphs of near indecipherable text), and lack of the Cattery. Onto the next.

[brokentune]

In the meantime, a constable had rounded up the undertaker, who arrived in great excitement, swallowing the last fragments of his tea. A slight further delay was caused by its occurring to somebody that the Fiscal should be notified. The Fiscal, fortunately enough, happened to be in the town, and joined the party, explaining to Wimsey as they drove along to the mortuary that it was the most painful case he had handled in the whole of his experience, and that he had been much struck by the superiority of the Scots law to the English in these matters, ‘For,’ said he, ‘the publicity of a coroner’s inquest is bound to give much unnecessary pain to the relations, which is avoided by our method of private investigation.’
‘That is very true,’ said Wimsey, politely, ‘but think of all the extra fun we get from the Sunday newspapers. Inquests are jam to them.’

The Five Red Herrings started off strong and I loved the setting and some of the scenes - like Bunter being a few steps ahead of Lord Peter, retelling his adventures in the fashion of The Castle of Otranto, and then caring for Lord Peter by having the Arnica oinment at the ready for Lord Peter's bruises.

However, ... for most of the book, I wished Sayers had spared us the details of doggedly chasing down every single train connection and what is more every single - it seemed - damned bicycle in the country only to find out that it was not the bicycle in question.

Not one of my favourite Wimseys.