I read this aloud to my sons during our lunch hour. We all agree that we like Agatha Christie's ability to create clever mysteries over Sayer's. In Sayer's mystery, Strong Poison, my youngest son had figured out by page 100 who was the culprit; whereas in Christie's mysteries, he has yet to solve one. On the other hand, we all agreed that Sayers is the better writer. Her sentence construction, word choice, and character development are more sophisicated. She also weaves in humor and clever phrasing that had us chuckling or rereading to appreciate its wit/creativity. I never reread or savor a phrase in Christie's novels.
Lord Peter Wimsey is convinced that Harriet Vane did not murder her ex-lover. All the evidence, however, seems to point to her. In his unconventional manner and by utilizing his typing bureau, aka Wimsey's "Cattery", Wimsey wiggles out the real murderer. During his investigation, Wimsey manages to fall in love but is unable to convince the lady to marry him.
Warnings: Since I read this aloud to my sons, I was able to skip the following or edit it- swearing, murder, Wimsey thinks about suicide (not seriously but analyzing how/why he would-I felt it was unnecessary to share this with my sons), Vane lives with her former lover without marrying him and says she would prefer to live with another man at the end of the book instead of marrying him, alcohol use, communicating with the dead/Ouija board (although the woman using it, was controlling it/faking it; Sayers tone towards this practice is mocking. She exposes how ridiculous it is.) We had a lot of discussions! I was a bit disappointed in the inclusion of these topics since Sayers was a Christian. However, she does make a point through her narrative to reinforce their futility (except the swearing and drinking) without being preachy.
*Highly recommend for high school or older.
-Borrowed from the library.
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