Customer Reviews

A Presumption of Death

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(16)
3 star:		(8)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(8)

 

 

I've been a Sayers fan for many years, read all the novels and stories at least a couple times, and given scholarly papers on Sayers at conferences. I even named my youngest son Peter. I've never been able to get through "Thrones, Dominations," the first Wimsey book mostly by Walsh, as what I love most about Sayers is not the plotting (it's not all that believable, frankly), but the delightful writing, witty and full of literary allusions most people don't catch (for example, there are allusions to Gilbert and Sullivan scattered through nearly every book). It seemed to me that Walsh failed to capture Sayers' tone, feel, sound. I couldn't bear it.

I haven't read "A Presumption of Death," but rather listened to the unabridged CDs read by Edward Petherbridge (a wonderful reading). I was delighted to find that at last Walsh seems to have captured Sayers. Indeed, she seems almost to be channeling Sayers. Time after time I found myself saying, "Yes, that's how Sayers would have written that sentence. That's where the plot would have gone." I felt like Walsh had actually bothered to READ Sayers' other books at last. Of course, this doesn't read like the early Wimsey novels, but it does read like a logical extension of "Busman's Honeymoon," with less detecting and more relationship and family matters. Walsh does an especially nice job capturing the Duke of Denver, the Duchess, and the Dowager Duchess. If you couldn't stand "Thrones, Dominations" but love Sayers, do give this one a try. And if you loved Petherbridge as the ultimate Wimsey on TV and lament his passing, do have a listen to his reading of this. It's a treat.

The plot of A PRESUMPTION OF DEATH is relatively simple. The time is 1939 and England is at war. Lord Peter Wimsey is off doing his duty while his wife Harriet Vane --- mother, mystery writer and involved citizen --- has fled to the English countryside with her children and their cousins. After a practice air raid drill, a young woman of questionable virtue is found dead. Superintendent Kirk of the local constabulary calls upon Harriett to help solve the murder. Lord Peter usually undertakes this kind of investigation, but he is unavailable and a dead girl's killer must be found. "I don't know which way to turn, Lady Peter, and that's the truth," says Kirk, when he proposes that Harriet help him. She reluctantly agrees to step in: "It isn't easy  [s]tanding in for Peter", but this is " in various ways what I seem to be for, at the moment."

That particular murder is the epicenter around which Jill Paton Walsh builds her tale. She uses the "Wimsey Papers", a collection of works that Dorothy L. Sayers had published in The Spectator in the 1930s and 1940s. These papers comprise a series of letters written by the Wimsey family to each other and to friends. They become the voices of the characters, both familiar and new, that Sayers wrote about. Walsh comments: "In A PRESUMPTION OF DEATH all I had to use were propaganda letters, and so I had a completely free hand with the plot."

To recreate Harriet Vane in A PRESUMPTION OF DEATH, Walsh says, "  [Sayers] didn't exactly promote Harriet, who is not, by any means, an idealized character. Just compare her with Peter. Look how grumpy she is, how bad-tempered, how sometimes cool she is. She's not beautiful, and has a hard, chilly-eyed view of life. And that's what gives her [a] convincing quality." She is bored with "just" being Lady Peter and, while she adores her children, she yearns for the freedom she had before motherhood and the war imposed their restrictions upon her. Readers and fans will have to decide for themselves how they feel about these issues, but the truth is they do not detract from an otherwise well-told story.

Agatha Christie and many other writers kill off their central characters in order to preserve their place in the canon. Sayers did not do this and, clearly, she left the "Wimsey Papers" for someone to "keep alive" with her/his ideas. The challenge for Walsh is to decide whether or not she wants to "adopt" the Wimsey clan with all of their eccentricities, lordly ways, manners and humor, or if she will decide that two is enough. When asked if she would consider this proposition, she said, "I would be fascinated, but I would be increasingly careful. Each step you take away from an authentic piece of work the harder it's going to be to maintain authenticity and I would need to think really hard. I mean Lord Peter and Harriet are lovely fun, they're awfully entertaining to write about, and I can think of loads of books about them that I'd love to write --- that's not the problem. I would need to be sure I could do it well. And by well, I mean really consistent with Sayers's work."

Jill Paton Walsh is a writer in her own right. She is the author of several children's books and six adult novels. She was invited to complete a Sayers manuscript (THRONES, DOMINATIONS): I " had a lot of fun doing it" and she was applauded for her efforts. For this second book she had the "papers" to help bolster and frame her story. A PRESUMPTION OF DEATH is a good read. Fans will find that it is faithful to the personalities Dorothy L. Sayers created and the plot is one that certainly resembles the original Wimsey/Vane pattern.

--- Reviewed by Barbara Lipkien Gershenbaum

This book does not honor the Sayers canon. It is full of allusions to moments from other books, as if Walsh is trying to say "See? I read then and know them! Trust me, I'm a fan!" But Sayers hardly ever repeated herself. The book has more dialogue and less intelligent introspection and analysis than any Sayers book. The scene in which Harriet puts an exhausted Bunter to bed would NEVER happen that way; Harriet wouldn't violate the social contract. Bunter would never be that familar with Ruddle. Trapp is not likely to tolerate Ruddle. In a late scene, Bunter appears in two places at once. There is no attempt to use dialect or idiom to distinguish people from different backgrounds. Poorly written, and VERY poorly edited. Looks like a rush job. I hope she does not write another novel using Sayers' characters. It is a disservice to the fans.

The names are accurate, even, to some extent, the sense of place, but the characters are mere shadows of themselves and the dialogue jars. Sayers let dialogue reveal the emotion; she didn't add "said smilingly," "said miserably" etc. to every third line. Anachronisms that bothered me in "Thrones" persisted here (Harriet inviting social inferiors to use her first name - today, it shows friendliness and an egalitarian spirit - then, it just WASN'T DONE.) And I wholeheartedly agree about the very non-subtle references to episodes from the other novels - very un-Sayers -- and the replay of well-known quirks, etc. In general, neither this book nor Thrones, Dominations is nearly as FUNNY as the "real" Sayers novels. Compare Strong Poison's terrific scenes in which the hidden wills are found, for example. I admit Paton-Walsh can write ... I just wish she would write more like DLS. A final carp - what's with the large print? I felt like I was reading a book for a second-grader.

Jill Paton Walsh should stop trying to continue the Lord Peter Wimsey series.

As I read this novel, I was annoyed by the anachronisms and by the constant references to events from previous novels. It was all too clearly written as a historical novel, with heavy-handed attempts to insert period detail, but without sufficient attention to accuracy. I was prepared to list examples, but I now see that other reviewers share my opinions, so I feel I can add my voice to theirs without having to repeat evidence and arguments.

I did notice that some of the letters were rather well done, so it did not suprise me to learn (from other reviews) that the letters were from the Wimsey Papers and therefore were written by Sayers herself. I should think any Wimsey fan would want to read those, but my advice is to get the book from the library. I would hate for this book to be a financial success that might tempt Walsh to try again. Because I have read Sayers' books many times, to the point where I almost feel I know Peter and Harriet, it disturbs me to read of people with their names acting so unlike them. Also, the mystery plot itself was quite weak, so I wouldn't recommend this book even to someone with no previous attachment to the characters.

I have to admit that I was hoping Walsh would get better at doing Sayers, & instead she seems to have strayed further from her writing than in the previous attempt (which I enjoyed very much). Walsh is a fine mystery writer in her own right, but her straightforward style of writing is greatly at odds with Sayers' lovely verbal curlicues. The best part about using Sayers' characters is that it really helps make clear the magnitude of the social upheaval that took place in WWII. However, I think, on the whole, the story would have been better served if Walsh had told it as her own with her own characters.

That said, it is a fun story, well told. Despite the irritating errors of continuity mentioned by previous reviewers, it has a captivating mix of humor, suspense and social history. The character development is fun, if not authoritative. Sayers made it clear that she was, in many ways, quite sick of Lord Peter and wanted him to "grow up," though those are not the words she used to describe the process. Walsh's cautious exploration of that theme is quite interesting, but does have rather a "fan fiction" feel to it. Still, given Sayers' own short story, "Tallboys," all her choices are well within the bounds of probability.

I rather hope that Walsh will abandon the pale-imitation-of-Sayers routine, and go back to her own Imogen Quy series. Walsh is a strong and graceful writer in her own voice.

I agree with much of the criticism in previous reviews. As a mystery, ignoring for a moment the Wimsey-Vane series, the fundamental problem is that the book is too short. The print is large so that fewer words can be stretched to a standard number of pages. Because the book is short, it is easy to catch all the hints about the case. There is not enough extra action and text to hide them. The author very heavy-handedly adds comments like, "Harriet forgot what was troubling her." By way of "explaining" Harriet's failure to follow up and thereby prolong the mystery, this tactic highlights the clue, which is not what a mystery-writer would want to do.
As a volume in the Wimsey-Vane series, the book is very weak. The personal material is entirely dependent on previous, authentic Sayers' works. Harriet is constantly thinking back to the events of Busman's Honeymoon, and Gaudy Night is also referred to. Interestingly, she seems to have forgotten about the Thrones, Dominations case. It doesn't figure in her recollections at all. The parts that are new are more wish-fulfillment (popular characters get happy endings) than authentic development.
Finally, to the person who complained that Jerry Winsey appears as uncle to his cousins Charlie Parker and Paul Wimsey, give me a break. Jerry is considerably older than the boys. It's a courtesy title.

I very much enjoyed this book, primarily for its insights into Wimsey home life. The mystery plot was thin and a bit facile, but the book is well-written and engaging.

There are, however, a couple of flaws that prevented me from giving the book a higher rating. There are anachronisms sprinkled through the novel, particularly in the form of phrases that I cannot imagine Harriet Wimsey (or, indeed, anyone else) using in 1940. The use of prior Sayers novels is also a trifle heavy-handed. Ms Walsh must know that her readers have read all the Sayers/Wimsey books, probably more than once. Given this fact, her fairly constant tendency to include and summarize materials from the other novels can become oppressive. Would Harriet Wimsey's train of thought upon seeing Miss Twitterton really include a total recall of her contact with Miss Twitterton on her (Harriet's) wedding night? It is now four years later, and I cannot imagine that Harriet would have no more recent memories of Miss Twitterton upon which to call. To summarize this criticism: there is too much of Busman's Honeymoon in this book.

Despite these criticisms, I did enjoy the book. It is worth reading. Moreover, the print is so large that those who are compelled to wait for large print editions need not do so: they will probably be able to read this one just fine.

One specific criticism: Walsh seems to have mixed up the Wimsey children Roger and Paul: in Sayers' story Talboys, set after this book, Bredon is six, Roger is four, and Paul is only briefly mentioned and strongly implied to be the youngest. Then somehow in Presumption of Death, Harriet has a three-year-old Bredon and . . . Paul. Harriet introduces him as "her second son" and Roger seems to have been completely skipped. I really don't understand how Walsh could clearly have done so much research and mimicked Sayers style so skillfully, yet overlooked something as basic as keeping her characters straight.

This is Walsh's 2nd collaboration (posthumously) with DLS--and, IMHO, it's far better than the prior one (Thrones, Dominations (A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery)). This book provides a glimpse into the trials/problems in England towards the beginning of WWII--esp. in the countryside. It continues most of DLS' prior main characters in a reasonably convincing manner, with French excerpts, numerous literary allusions, etc. It does also include many anachronistic terms (at least from a modern, American perspective). The mystery is IMHO up to snuff, including more elucidation on Lord Wimsey's exploits on behalf of the British Government--with an interesting tie-in to Harriet Vane. However, sensate, die-hard DLS fans may find fault with any posthumous work not entirely written by Sayers. Personally, I think this is a fine mystery--it relies heavily on DLS' prior works but has, perhaps, a bit of Ngaio Marsh thrown in--i.e. it has quite a few very fine quotations as well as wise observations on life. My favorites are:

Quotations:
p. 19: Henry de Montherlant, Explicit Mysterium, 1931--It is through chance that, from among the various individuals of which each of us is composed, one emerges rather than another.
p. 41: Bertrand Russell, On Education, 1926--No one gossips about other people's secret virtues.

Observations:
p. 11: It's only grown-ups who want children to be children; children themselves always want to be real people...All this cult of keeping young as long as possible is a lot of unnatural nonsense; no wonder the world seems to get sillier and sillier.
p. 99: The trouble with living with children wasn't what she had thought it would be. They were on the whole as interesting to her as a group of adults; she wasn't in the least bored with them...But they were liable to present one without any warning at all with acute moral dilemmas, like a fatal cosmic game in which the stake was one's integrity--not truth or dare, but truth or comfort...justice for all or protection for the weakest.
p. 188: People who make regulations...should have a firm grasp of human nature.
p. 259: A tragedy is a good theory defeated by a fact.

Turn of phrase:
p. 293: Your tongue's so sharp it's a wonder it doesn't cut your mouth sometimes.

The last reminds me of some of the critics of this work.