Customer Reviews

Dorothy and Agatha: A Mystery Novel

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

A corpse is found in Dorothy Sayers home and Dorothy becomes the prime suspect. Agatha Christie comes to the rescue, and the two most famous mystery writers of the mid-Twentieth Century set out to solve a mystery. If you are already familiar with events in the lives of Agatha and Dorothy, this book will not reveal anything about their lives that you don't already know. The book is worth reading if you are (as I am) a lover of the works of Agatha and Dorothy. But don't expect the plot or the writing to equal the efforts of the real Agatha Christy and Dorothy Sayers.

First of all, the writing is execrable - a classic illustraion of why writers are told to "show, not tell".

But what makes this book really awful is that, while the writer seems to have at least a nodding acquaintance with Christie's work. I will eat my copy if the author has read any but the earliest and slightest works of Sayers. She (He?) gets the plot of Gaudy Night so wrong as to contradict the main point of the book, turns the Wimsey motto into something not only wrong but nonsensical. The author has done a decent amount of research otherwise, but the lack of understanding of the books and thus of the authors is going to grate on anyone who's familiar with them.

Dorothy Sayers comes home from a meeting to find a dead man in her house. When a letter supposedly from the dead man to his "Dorothy darling" is discovered in his pocket, she become the chief suspect. But this is not a good time for a corpse. She's right in the middle of writing a religious play and fears the publicity would kill any career she might hope to have in serious religous writing.

So when the Detective Club next meets, her friends all decide to help the police by discovering the identity of the dead man, so the police can find who really killed the man and leave their friend alone. But it doesn't work like that. The evidence all points to a possible connection between the dead man and the writer that even her friends can't deny.

The other writers all give up after Dorothy finds out what they're up to. Only Agatha Christie hangs on, and before long, the two women are in a desperate race to save the lives of the next victims. But as the deaths mount up and the police ask more questions, the two greatest mystery writers of the age are almost outwitted by a determined killer.

I enjoyed this book. I didn't really know much about the life of Dorothy Sayers and I enjoyed finding out more about who she really was. I love Agatha Christie and I liked reading about her. Another thing I loved was reading about their fellow members of the Detection Club. It made me want to read more of their books.

My main complaint is that the identity of the murderer become obvious too early. I couldn't believe that either of the women took that long to figure it out. And the police aren't really that dumb either. It wasn't that believable. But it was fun. If you're a fan of either writer, you will probably enjoy the book, but it's certainly no substitute for the real thing.

A investigation of the body found in the home of Dorothy L. Sayers (Fleming) threatens to expose parts of her past life that she prefers to keep hidden. She is about to produce a play that she has written for the Canterbury Cathedral Festival, and fears that scandal would get her dropped from the program.

Her associates in the Detection Club (a real organization) including E.C. Bentley, A.A. Milne, and Anthony Berkeley drag a somewhat reluctant Agatha Christie into investigating the case as a lark. They soon find that real life isn't the same as their books, and an infuriated Sayers sends them packing. Christie returns, however, and the two women begin looking into the case.

Gaylord Larsen tells us that while this is by no means biographical, he has attempted to stay true to the characters of the two women. Sayers is forceful, highbrow, eager to turn to more serious writing and burdened by an unhappy marriage. Christie is mild, modest and self-effacing, but haunted by the publicity of her famous disappearance. (Either Larsen has used Miss Marple in creating Christie's character, or Miss Marple was somewhat autobiographical.) Larsen notes that they knew each other, collaborated sometimes, and had some interesting parallels in their lives, but there is no evidence that they were friends, and little information about their opinions of one another.

The two women are not particularly sympathetic to one another at the beginning, but they respect one another more as they work together. There is a competent mystery at the heart of the story, but it takes second place to the vivid development of their personalities. Now I'm anxious to read biographies of both. The Detection Club and its members make for an interesting subplot and minor characters. A great fan of character-driven stories, I thoroughly enjoyed this and wish that Larsen would do more.

The cover on the hardback is wonderful: in a stylized 30s style illustration, Dorothy and Agatha daintly share cups of tea over a corpse on the floor.