Customer Reviews

Strong Poison

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

 

 

Personally I have always been an Agatha the Christie fan. My first encounter with Dorothy L. Sayers was the Mobile Mystery Theater series showing on PBS.

Naturally the TV media cannot fill in all the details that you would pick up from reading the book. So I read the book. This added more depth to the story, but now I appreciate Dorothy L. Sayers more than Agatha Christie. But Dorothy not only fleshes her characters out better but her side trips into philosophy and psychology make the story that much more interesting. And just when you say "what is the relevance to this conversation?" it is wrapped up in the final solution.

This is the first of a fourth book series. The story is complete and can be used as a stand-alone story.

The notorious Harriet Vane is on trial for poisoning her previous live in lover. Naturally Lord Peter Wimsey falling in love with her, is determined that she is innocent and will prove this. To save her repartition he must fined the real culprit (if there is one), because if Harriet gets off on a technicality, she will always be under suspicion.

Although I give this novel four stars, it is one of my favorite Sayers novels because it introduces Harriet Vane, a mystery writer on trial for the murder, by poison, of her former lover. Harriet is intelligent and principled, and Peter Wimsey falls in love with her almost instantly -- even though he meets her while she's in prison. Wimsey tries to solve the case and prove that Harriet did not murder her former lover, even though she seems to be the sole person with motive and opportunity. Some of the scenes in this novel are a bit dry (courtroom scene, for example) and overly long, but the story itself is excellent.