1261. The Nine Tailors (Dorothy Sayers)

Synopsis:
When his sexton finds a corpse in the wrong grave, the rector of Fenchurch St Paul asks Lord Peter Wimsey to find out who the dead man was and how he came to be there. The lore of bell-ringing and a brilliantly-evoked village in the remote fens of East Anglia are the unforgettable background to a story of an old unsolved crime and its violent unravelling twenty years later.

My rating: 4 stars

840. Unnatural Death (Dorothy Sayers)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
"No sign of foul play," says Dr Carr after the post-mortem on Agatha Dawson. The case is closed. But Lord Peter Wimsey is not satisfied ...With no clues to work on, he begins his own investigation. No clues, that is, until the sudden, senseless murder of Agatha's maid. What is going on in the mysterious Mrs Forrest's Mayfair flat? And can Wimsey catch a desperate murderer before he himself becomes one of the victims?

My rating: 4 stars

829. Whose Body? (Dorothy Sayers)

Synopsis from Amazon:
The stark naked body was lying in the tub. Not unusual for a proper bath, but highly irregular for murder -- especially witha 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.

My rating: 5 stars

285. Strong Poison (Dorothy Sayers)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
Can Lord Peter Wimsey prove that Harriet Vane is not guilty of murder- - or find the real poisoner in time to save her from the gallows? Impossible, it seems. The Crown's case is watertight. The police are adamant that the right person is on trial. The judge's summing-up is also clear. Harriet Vane is guilty of the killing her lover. And Harriet Vane shall hang. But the jury disagrees.

My rating: 3 stars

Publication information:

• Published in 1930 by Gollancz in London
• Black cloth with red lettering
• Dust Wrapper priced at 7/6
  

255. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (Dorothy Sayers)

The Cenotaph, London

Synopsis from Amazon:
90-year-old General Fendman was definitely dead, but no one knew exactly when he had died -- and the time of death was the determining factor in a half-million-pound inheritance. Lord Peter Wimsey would need every bit of his amazing skills to unravel the mysteries of why the General's lapel was without a red poppy on Armistice Day, how the club's telephone was fixed without a repairman, and, most puzzling of all, why the great man's knee swung freely when the rest of him was stiff with rigor mortis.

My rating: 4 stars

Publication information:

• Published in 1928 by Ernest Benn in London
• Black cloth with orange lettering
• Dust Wrapper priced at 7/6
  

177. Clouds of Witness (Dorothy Sayers)

Westminster: interior of London tram, lower deck, with driver. Notice about "London's Last Trams" displayed. Houses of Parliament (Westminster Palace) in background. In Clouds of Witness, a taxi with its front tyre shot out spins out of control into a tram parked at this very spot.

Synopsis from Amazon:
Rustic old Riddlesdale Lodge was a Wimsey family retreat filled with country pleasures and the thrill of the hunt -- until the game turned up human and quite dead. He lay among the chrysanthemums, wore slippers and a dinner jacket and was Lord Peter's brother-in-law-to-be. His accused murderer was Wimsey's own brother, and if murder set all in the family wasn't enough to boggle the unflappable Lord Wimsey, perhaps a few twists of fate would be -- a mysterious vanishing midnight letter from Egypt, a grieving fiancee with suitcase in hand, and a bullet destined for one very special Wimsey.

My rating: 4 stars

Publication information:

• Published in 1926 by Fisher Unwin in London
• Blue cloth with black lettering
  

77. Murder Must Advertise (Dorothy Sayers)

Synopsis from Amazon:
When advertising executive Victor Dean dies from a fall down the stairs at Pym's Publicity, Lord Peter Wimsey is asked to investigate. It seems that, before he died, Dean had begun a letter to Mr. Pym suggesting some very unethical dealings at the posh London ad agency. Wimsey goes undercover and discovers that Dean was part of the fast crowd at Pym's, a group taken to partying and doing drugs. Wimsey and his brother-in-law, Chief-Inspector Parker, rush to discover who is running London's cocaine trade and how Pym's fits into the picture -- all before Wimsey's cover is blown.

My rating: 5 stars

My review: One of the best Lord Peter mysteries.

Publication information:

• Published in 1933 by Victor Gollancz
• Black cloth with red lettering
  
• Dust Wrapper priced at 7/6

64. Gaudy Night (Dorothy Sayers)

Synopsis from Amazon:
When Harriet Vane attends her Oxford reunion, known as the "Gaudy," the prim academic setting is haunted by a rash of bizarre pranks: scrawled obsentities, burnt effigies and poison-pen letters -- including one that says, "Ask your boyfriend with the title if he likes arsenic in his soup." Some of the notes threaten murder; all are perfectly ghastly; yet in spite of their scurrilous nature, all are perfectly worded. And Harriet finds herself ensnared in a nightmare of romance and terror, with only the tiniest shreds of clues to challenge her powers of detection, and those of her paramour, Lord Peter Wimsey.

My rating: 3 stars

My review: Not as clever as Sayers's previous Lord Peter novels.

Publication information:

• Published in 1935 by Gollancz
• Black cloth with Gilt lettering
  
• Dust Wrapper priced at 8/6

14. The Five Red Herrings (Dorothy Sayers)

Synopsis from Amazon UK:
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.

My rating: 5 stars

Publication information:

• First published in 1931 by Gollancz, London
• Black cloth with red lettering
• Dust Wrapper priced at 7/6