From the back cover:
The Crown’s case was watertight. The police were adamant that the right person was on trial. The judge’s summing up was also clear. ‘The prisoner had the means—the arsenic. She had the opportunity to administer it.’ Harriet Vane was guilty. And Harriet Vane should hang. But the jury disagreed. And so did Lord Peter Wimsey—he had to prove that Harriet hadn’t murdered her lover with arsenic—and he also had to find out who had.

Review:
Alas, I was rather disappointed in Strong Poison. True, it addressed one of the complaints I had early on in the series and featured loads of personal drama for the investigators. I liked the turn Peter took here—in love and accepting rejection with grace and angst—and I liked Harriet, too, though there wasn’t enough of her. Miss Climpson and another enterprising spinster were also entertaining and made valuable contributions to the case.

But! I just about tore my hair out when another confounded will entered the picture. There was a twist involved that made it slightly different than a matter of mere inheritance, but just once, I’d like to read a Sayers book that mentions neither a testatrix nor a legatee! There was also a certain clue that, by the randomness of its inclusion, enabled me to immediately guess the method in which the arsenic was administered.

Despite not being everything I’d hoped for, it was still probably the best of the Sayers so far.

From the back cover:
This sinister, engaging case takes aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey from London to Paris and then back, to the austere dignity of the Bellona Club. There, 90-year-old General Fentiman was found dead in his favorite wing chair by the fireplace. Oddly, his sister died elsewhere the same day, perhaps within minutes of her brother. Investigating the question of who died first, a critical matter for inheritance, Wimsey grows suspicious about vital rigor mortis evidence. Might it actually be a case of murder? Intricate, elegant, and delightful—quintessential Wimsey.

Review:
There’s a complexity to The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club that is missing from earlier entries in the series. Lord Peter shows a darker side, capable of manipulation or steeliness. He gets into two verbal arguments (both with great dialogue), one even culminating in a fist fight. I am liking this Peter! There’s also more nuance to his relationship with Parker and a bit more sophistication in the plotting. A harbinger of good things to come, methinks.

Some things, however, remain doggedly the same. Yet another will with a strange clause figures into the plot. I have lost track of how many times that has happened now. And, if the perpetrators had had their way, the money would’ve gone to a medical purpose, just like in a couple of the short stories. Sigh.

There are also a couple of leaps in the solution that don’t quite make sense to me. The most major is that the suspect had a big secret and somehow the victim knew it. But I don’t remember it ever being explained how it was known; that bit was just kind of glossed over.

I look forward to the result of these various improvements in characterization combined with a fresher motive. The first person to recommend Sayers to me named the next in the series as one of her favorites, so perhaps I shan’t have long to wait for something satisfying on both levels.

From the back cover:
The wealthy Agatha Dawson is dead and there are no apparent signs of foul play. Yet debonair detective Lord Peter Wimsey senses that something is amiss and he refuses to let the case rest, even without any clues or leads. Suddenly he is faced with another murder: Agatha’s maid. Can Lord Peter find the murderer and solve the case before he becomes the next victim?

Review:
Unnatural Death was another decent mystery in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. Despite some fairly dull patches, I think I liked it a bit more than its immediate predecessor.

Good things include the introduction of Miss Climpson, a resourceful old maid whom Peter hires to do some investigation on his behalf, recognizing “useful energy and inquisitive power” of her kind. Her reports to Peter were generally amusing and I hope to see more of her in the future. I also liked that, although it was never explicitly stated, the victim seemed to be the surviving half of a happy lesbian couple who’d been together for decades.

I wasn’t so keen on the tedium of family trees or inheritance laws, however. And while it was unique to know exactly who had done it but not how, it didn’t do much to establish a sense of menace or urgency. It was more a quest for sufficient evidence to prosecute than a manhunt. Things did pick up a bit at the end, though. It also occurs to me that there wasn’t very much Bunter, though he was essential in sussing out the big twist of the case.

I’ve liked the Wimsey mysteries I’ve read so far well enough, but if they were all in this vein, I think I might tire of them eventually. Happily, I’ve got something like Gaudy Night to look forward to.

From the back cover:
Murder strikes too close to home! Lord Peter, noted detective, scholar, and bon vivant, is summoned to the Wimsey family retreat, which offers country pleasures and the thrill of the hunt. But when the prey turns out to be human and quite dead, wearing slippers and a dinner jacket, the thrill wanes. The victim is the fiancé of Lord Peter’s sister. And the accused? None other than Lord Peter’s own brother, the Duke of Denver. Despite overwhelming circumstantial evidence, Lord Peter is certain his brother is innocent and launches his own investigation. Can he find the truth in time to save the family name and spare his brother the gallows?

Review:
Clouds of Witness is a decent enough mystery, I suppose, but it won’t rank as one of my favorites.

I find it difficult to nail down a precise flaw that prompts my lack of enthusiasm, but I think it’s personal drama for the investigators (as in P. D. James or Elizabeth George) that I am missing, and I know I oughtn’t expect that from Sayers. The investigation is very clue-driven, and includes a few lucky coincidences. They didn’t bother me as much as in Tey’s books, but I do wonder whether Whose Body? was similar and I just didn’t notice it.

The best part about Sayers is that it’s often quite amusing, not just the little remarks that people make but also the way Peter’s quirks are dealt with. I especially appreciated a scene where he punctuates his words with little digs into his pipe, and the drunken epilogue was also cute. Less cute was Peter’s miraculous recovery from a gunshot wound to the shoulder that’s never mentioned again, even when he is hauled bodily out of a bog by a rope under his armpits a mere four days later. Oopsies.