30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
"You ain't got no call to be afeared of the bells...if you follow righteousness.", June 30, 2006
This review is from: The Nine Tailors (Paperback)
Set in the remote village of Fenchurch St. Paul, this 1934 mystery involves an unknown body, which has been disfigured and mysteriously buried in the same grave as a local woman, shortly after the New Year. Many years before, a magnificent necklace of emeralds was stolen here, though it was never found. Two men and a local woman were implicated in the theft, and both men served time in prison. Now the unknown body, the fate of the two men involved in the theft of the emeralds, the whereabouts of the necklace, and the involvement of seemingly upright citizens of Fenchurch St. Paul are all under investigation.
Lord Peter Wimsey, accompanied by his "man" Bunter, becomes involved in the investigation when their car runs off the road on a snowy New Year's Eve. Lord Peter ultimately agrees to substitute for an indisposed bell-ringer when the rector attempts to set a record of more than 18,000 rings in nine hours as a New Year's Eve celebration. The bells are an integral part of the mystery, with the "nine tailors," a pattern of bell ringing, figuring prominently in the action. A coded letter suggests that the bells themselves may be connected to the emerald necklace.
Author Dorothy Sayers creates vivid characters--the somewhat arrogant Lord Peter Wimsey, his faithful manservant Bunter, the "forgetful" rector of the local church and his wife, the French wife and children of one of the thieves, assorted odd characters from the town, and local law enforcement. The opportunity to locate the emeralds and ascertain the fate of the thieves, one of whom escaped shortly after being sentenced to jail, intrigues Lord Peter, and some townspeople have much to gain (or lose), depending on the identity of the man in the grave and his possible killer. Sayers's complex mystery and the equally complex interactions of the various characters keep the reader guessing to the very end.
Ingenious and clever, this mystery is full of dry humor, as Lord Peter and Bunter engage in word play, hilarious who's-on-first dialogue, and multiple absurdities as they try to solve the case. The characters go beyond stereotype, eliciting sympathy and often respect, as they contrast with the sometimes stuffy and aristocratic Lord Peter. A mystery which is as satisfying in its conclusion (resembling the divine intervention of classical Greek tragedy) as it is in its immediate action, The Nine Tailors is one of Sayers's best and most intricate mysteries. n Mary Whipple
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49 of 55 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Review, December 6, 2001
This review is from: The Nine Tailors (Paperback)
This novel, Dorothy L. Sayers' best-known, is, without doubt, one of her best-if not the best. Sayers takes the customary English village, and makes something new of it, by setting it in the Fen country, and by giving to it a church, which, as the well-drawn rector describes, "East Anglia is famous for the size and splendour of its parish churches. Still, we flatter ourselves we are almost unique, even in this part of the world." The church services show great feeling and power, and neatly tie in with the theme of religion. The church possesses bells, the book being best-known for the bell-ringing, described in such powerfully beautiful descriptions as:
"Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvres of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells-little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul."
The bells are also eerily threatening-"Bells are like cats and mirrors-they're always queer, and it doesn't do to think too much about them."-which is fitting, as the plot hinges on bells: both an ingenious cryptogram (again, to quote the rector, "I should never have thought of the possibility that one might make a cipher out of change-ringing. Most ingenious."), and an ingenious murder method.
The whodunit aspect of the story is not neglected; for once, it is a genuine problem. The body is buried in a grave, and involves a complicated problem of identity, and an unknown method. The victim, as Wimsey describes, is "a perfect nuisance, dead or alive, and whoever killed him was a public benefactor. I wish I'd killed him myself." Wimsey is engaging here, and not the parody of Bertie Wooster he sometimes is-he is a human being, without being the equally obnoxious creature found in Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon. The detection is excellent, and, as was to be the trend in nearly every detective story following (especially Nicholas Blake's), the detective "felt depressed. So far as he could see, his interference had done no good to anybody and only made extra trouble. It was a thousand pities that the body of Deacon had ever come to light at all. Nobody wanted it." These tie in with the burden of guilt and innocence, redemption and repentance.
Finally, the book comes to its powerful climax in a flooded village, "with an aching and intolerable melancholy, like the noise of the bells of a drowned city pushing up through the overwhelming sea."
This is not a detective story-this is, if anything, a novel.
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19 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perhaps the finest of Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries., May 26, 1996
By A Customer
This review is from: The Nine Tailors (Paperback)
Unlike some of her Lord Peter mysteries, this novel can be read by itself, and it is a delight. About a murder done in an old church in the English countryside, you will learn more about the ringing of church bells than you thought possible. Lord Peter is at the top of his form, literate, intelligent, and a thinker beyond being just a mystery novel detective. None of the characters are one or two dimensional, and each of them is developed fully and delightfully. When it comes to mystery fiction, you can't do much better than Sayers...which may be one reason her novels appeared on PBS' MASTERPIECE THEATRE rather than MYSTERY! They are indeed, masterpieces
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