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Last week, I enjoyed walking the paths along coastal Britain with Kate Humble. Tina enjoyed a fun novel about a character who runs a bookshop in London: With Love from London.

Book: Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers
Genre: Mystery
Publisher: Dreamscape Media
Publication date: 2018, originally 1923

Source: eBook borrowed from library

Summary: Lord Peter Wimsey has an unusual and embarrassing hobby for a man of his station. He investigates crimes. For the most part, that isn’t embarrassing to him, only his family, but occasionally he worries that he isn’t treating the whole thing with the care and seriousness that it deserves.

Here’s an illustrative quote from a conversation that Peter has with Detective Parker as they work on two cases together that may or may not be connected.

“Look here, Peter,” said the other with some earnestness, “suppose you get this playing-fields-of-Eton complex out of your system once and for all. There doesn’t seem to be much doubt that something unpleasant has happened to Sir Reuben Levy. Call it murder, to strengthen the argument. If Sir Reuben has been murdered, is it a game? and is it fair to treat it as a game?”

“That’s what I’m ashamed of, really,” said Lord Peter. “It is a game to me, to begin with, and I go on cheerfully, and then I suddenly see that somebody is going to be hurt, and I want to get out of it.”

“Yes, yes, I know,” said the detective, “but that’s because you’re thinking about your attitude. You want to be consistent, you want to look pretty, you want to swagger debonairly through a comedy of puppets or else to stalk magnificently through a tragedy of human sorrows and things. But that’s childish. If you’ve any duty to society in the way of finding out the truth about murders, you must do it in any attitude that comes handy. You want to be elegant and detached? That’s all right, if you find the truth out that way, but it hasn’t any value in itself, you know. You want to look dignified and consistent–what’s that got to do with it? You want to hunt down a murderer for the sport of the thing and then shake hands with him and say, ‘Well played–hard luck–you shall have your revenge tomorrow!’ Well, you can’t do it like that. Life’s not a football match. You want to be a sportsman. You can’t be a sportsman. You’re a responsible person.”

Thoughts: Whose Body? was published in 1923. I enjoyed reading it during its 100th anniversary year of publication. Whose Body? is Dorothy L. Sayers first novel and the novel that begins Lord Peter Wimsey’s adventures. His story continues through 10 more books and many short stories.

In some places, the age of this novel shows.

The portrayal of Jews in Whose Body? wasn’t particularly negative, but it was stereotyped. It was also clear who were the real English men and who were the outsiders, never mind that Jews had been in England for centuries. That othering allows for a detachment from the Jews in the story, who are the apparent victims, in a way that allows the tone of the novel to be more amusing than it would without the detachment, but at a cost to the humanity of everyone.

In other places, Whose Body? feels like it could have been written yesterday.

There’s a scene where Lord Peter is stuck in a dream, reminiscent of the battle scenes he experienced during World War I. Modern readers immediately identify it as PTSD. A hundred years ago, it was called shellshock or, simply, nerves.

Appeal: I’m not good at solving mysteries. I knew who the perpetrator was at exactly the moment that Sayers wanted me to know. I enjoyed the ride, though, especially the gallivanting around London in 1923.

Have you read this book? What did you think?