By Dorothy Sayers (and Robert Eustace); originally published 1930. I do not usually write reviews of the mysteries I read (partly because I do not quite know how one reviews a mystery), but I thought I might be able to do one on this particular story.
Anyway, this is, of course, a murder mystery. It is written as though one is reading the compilation of documents that one party sent to another. It's really a rather fascinating techinque because you get mulitple angles of the same incidents and at times they are thoroughly contradicting. Without giving any details on the story, I wanted to mention an underlying subject (one might call it theme) that is brought up time and time again through it--the question "What is life?" It is never really answered, but you get several different attempts at answers from men ranging from churchmen to chemists and other scientists. In fact, I got thoroughly lost in one particular conversation. Which brings up another point...I find this more probably in Sayers books than I do, say in Agatha Christie's, but with these (primarily) British mystery writers in the late 1920's-'40's, I find that my rough knowledge of "modern" philosophy comes in handy. There are things that I would completely miss if I didn't know just a little about it. Suffice to say, it was an interesting read, one of the most unique set-ups I have ever observed in a mystery, and I am happy to say, justice was served in the end. Not 'poetical' justice, but real justice. I would recommend it to fellow mystery enthusiasts .
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RachealA Reformed Presbyterian girl who enjoys a good movie or a good book any ol' Archives
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