Wednesday 25 January 2017

Strong Poison by Dorothy L Sayers

Book 6 in a series may be an odd place to start, but Strong Poison: A Lord Wimsey Mystery made its way into my backpack for our recent holiday simply because a reading copy had become available at work just before we left & I thought it looked like a nice, easy read.

It filled that bill for me perfectly.

Cuba was an extraordinary holiday destination.

So many strong impressions, confounding experiences and lots of waiting times. Waiting for a delayed flight, waiting to catch a bus or whiling away a lazy evening on a roof top garden, wi-fi free, with plenty of time to simply chat, contemplate the world and read.

Reading a book that could be picked up and put down at the drop of hat, mid-sentence, was just the right choice for this trip.

I knew nothing about Peter Wimsey but quickly learnt that he had a droll sense of humour and was rather keen on 'cheerio' and 'I say old chap'!

This is the book where Wimsey falls in love for the first time. Although I had only just met Wimsey, I was very surprised to discover that he was attracted to women. His character came across as being so camp that I'm now not sure if he was in denial or if it was Sayers!

As for the mystery, Sayers dropped plenty of clues along the way so that you could work out who did it pretty easily. You keep on reading to find out how exactly it all unfolds.

This edition was accompanied by an Introduction by Edward Petherbridge, the actor who played Wimsey in the 1987 BBC adaptations.

There was also a fun, short 'bio' of Peter Wimsey written by his uncle, included in the back.

Strong Poison is good old-fashioned light entertainment of the jolliest kind!

4 comments:

  1. One of my favourite Wimsey books! I'd read quite a few of Sayers' other Lord Peter books before this one but it wasn't until I read Strong Poison & Gaudy Night that I saw his humanity. Cuba! I hope you write a post about your visit!

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    1. There will definitely be some Cuba posts to come. Mr Books & I are even considering starting a travel blog, we have so many ideas for posts!
      I also read Our Man in Havana in Cuba - review still to come.

      PS I'm glad this post made sense. Our journey home took 27hrs & now we're trying to stay awake until it's a reasonable time to go to bed!

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  2. I've read Greene's The Third Man which is set in Vienna & would like to read Our Man in Havana also. Look forward to your review on that. Then I should probably try to convince my husband we need to Cuba to read it...

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  3. I once read Sayers' short story "Suspicion" which I thought was very good - and is also about a poisoner! Several people have recommended the Lord Wimsey stories to me over the years but somehow I've never gotten around to them.

    My post about Suspicion is here if you'd like to take a look: https://bibliophilica.wordpress.com/2012/12/11/suspicion-a-short-story-by-dorothy-l-sayers/

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