A Presumption of Death: A New Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane Mystery (Hardcover)

~ Jill Paton Walsh (Author), Dorothy L. Sayers (Author) "I think I had better write you my usual Christmas letter now, because naturally the war has upset the posts a little; and one can't..." (more)
Key Phrases: wandering maniac, pig club, Lady Peter, Miss Twitterton, Superintendent Kirk (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In her second Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane whodunit, Booker Prize finalist Walsh (Knowledge of Angels) does a far better job of honoring Sayers than she did in their first posthumous collaboration, Thrones, Dominations (1998). Walsh's starting point here is "The Wimsey Papers," a series of letters on home front conditions, ostensibly written by various members of the Wimsey family, which ran in the Spectator at the outset of WWII. Lord Peter himself is offstage for most of the novel, involved in some covert mission in Europe, leaving his wife to take care of their household. When a young Land Girl is found murdered during an air raid, the local superintendent enlists Harriet's aid. Harriet's traditional line of inquiry into possible spurned suitors is diverted when an eccentric and seemingly paranoid dentist discloses that the quiet, ordinary village of Paggleham is actually a nest of German spies. Despite Peter's diminished role, he remains a vital presence throughout, thanks to his place at the center of Harriet's thoughts. Should Walsh have no further original Sayers material to draw on, she seems perfectly suited to continue the series entirely on her own.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

“Sayers’ fans are in Walsh’s debt.” ---San Francisco Chronicle

"The setting is authentic and the story is gripping, but this is also a serious and committed book." --Barbara Reynolds, President of the Dorothy L. Sayers Society and author of Dorothy L. Sayers: Her Life and Soul
-- Review

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 384 pages
• Publisher: St. Martin's Minotaur; 1st edition (March 27, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312291000
• ISBN-13: 978-0312291006
• Product Dimensions: 9.5 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (40 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #141,737 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

44 of 46 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Channeled Sayers, April 16, 2005

By	Bill Pen (Hamburg, PA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Presumption of Death: A New Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane Mystery (Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane Mysteries) (Mass Market Paperback)

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.

44 of 49 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars A good read with a relatively simple plot, March 8, 2003

By	Bookreporter.com (New York, New York) - See all my reviews

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

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Less than stellar as a sequel..., August 8, 2003

By	Susan Shedd (South Woodbury, VT USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.