I have managed to rate 76 books so far, everything from Regency romance to labor history with the same five-star system, but I can't do this one. Stars do not apply. I rate Unnatural Death ARRRRGHH!Purely as a mystery, I think it's excellent -- excellent and very grim, the grimmer the more I think about it.With regard to the female characters (always something I pay great attention to with Sayers), it's both deeply satisfying and terribly uncomfortable.And then, race. Oh god, Sayers. Why? Why did you have to be a "product of her time" in that particular way? Why were you so. damn. thoroughly a product of your time, and why was your time that way, even though Ida B. Wells was of your mother's generation?** spoilers commence **The mystery:The premise is that Wimsey and Parker happen to hear a doctor's story about the death of his elderly patient, a death that seemed suspicious to the doctor but to no one else. Despite Parker's lack of interest, Wimsey begins to pry into the affair. Presently, a woman Wimsey has been trying to contact dies in a sudden, though apparently natural way. Mysterious circumstances pile up and at the end two witnesses are murdered, at least three more people have come near murder, and the murderer herself commits suicide.Wimsey is interested in this case because the original death of the old woman strikes him as a "perfect murder" -- one that leaves behind no evidence and arouses no suspicion. He theorizes that murderers only get caught when they make mistakes in covering up for themselves. Wimsey supposes that many deaths are in fact murders. The problem is that in attempting to bring these unsuspected murderers to justice, the sleuth stirs up the affair and incites the murderer to take further steps to hide -- more desperately, more brutally as Wimsey nears the truth.Wimsey and the reader are left, at the close of the novel, with the horrible question of how responsible Wimsey is for all this devastation.The female characters:Specifically, this is a book about lesbians.The original murder victim, the old lady Agatha Dawson, is being taken care of by her grand-niece at the time of her death. Prior to this, she had lived at a country estate with her life partner, Clara Whittaker. How these two women are described is maybe my favorite thing that I've read so far by Sayers. Miss Dawson and Miss Whittaker met at school and became best friends. Their siblings married (producing the great-niece) and Miss Dawson and Miss Whittaker, deciding that marriage and men were not for them, set up housekeeping together. Miss Whittaker was a very enterprising woman who knew all about horses, and she began keeping a stable, which made her rich. Miss Dawson was the more domestic and retiring of the two, but very proud of Miss Whittaker's accomplishments. When Miss Whittaker died, she left all her money to Miss Dawson.The two old ladies and their relationship are mostly described by an elderly countryman and woman who worked for the Whittaker family all their lives. They have nothing but admiration and affection for the couple, whom they describe as being devoted to one another, and for Miss Whittaker -- "The Lord makes a few on 'em that way to suit 'Is own purposes, I suppose."There's never any mention that Miss Dawson and Miss Whittaker's relationship was sexual, but I didn't find that to be a problem -- perhaps it wasn't; perhaps it was but it's not relevant to the old countryfolk, Wimsey, Sayers, or the reader. What matters is that they were devoted to one another, and nobody in Unnatural Death judges them for that or even finds it especially unusual.But then there's the younger Miss Whittaker, the great-niece and the murder suspect. She is also meant to be read as a lesbian. (N.B., Sayers never uses the word "lesbian" or says much about being sexually attracted to women. She does write about being sexually unattracted to men, having a deep need to live independently of men, and being emotionally attached to women.)The younger Miss Whittaker exhibits the same traits as the elder Miss Whittaker: stubborn independence, explicit disdaining of having anything to do with men, confident and powerful body language, and being in a close relationship with another women (in this case, Vera Findlater). But while the elder Miss Whittaker isn't judged and receives fond admiration for these very traits, the younger Miss Whittaker is portrayed as unnatural and suspicious.It's true that a lot of this suspicion comes from Miss Climpson, not from Wimsey or the narrator. (Oh, Miss Climpson! Having loved her in Strong Poison, I was so happy to find her so prominent in Unnatural Death, which is the first book in which she appears. But although I still love her, I can't love her as much now that I've seen more of her opinions.) Miss Climpson, we learn, is a spinster of necessity, not by choice, but, having lived her life among other spinsters, she understands unmarried women very well. So when she becomes the confidante of Vera Findlater, she is worried by the "schoolgirl crush" Miss Findlater has for Miss Whittaker -- an unhealthy passion, which makes Miss Findlater susceptible to being abused by Miss Whittaker...At first I hoped that we were just seeing the more foolish, prejudiced side of Miss Climpson, and that she would turn out to be wrong. In fact, I hoped that by duplicating the life of the elder Miss Whittaker, the younger would be demonstrating her innocence. But she's not. She is abusing Miss Findlater's loyalty, and in the end Miss Findlater is the victim of her most horrible murder.The plot, Wimsey's perceptions, and the narrator's description all enforce Miss Climpson's diagnosis that Miss Whittaker, because of her lesbian characteristics, is an unnatural and suspicious woman. (To be clear, I'm not saying that Sayers is being homophobic because she made a lesbian the murderer. What's problematic is that her lesbianness is a major part of what makes her suspicious.)I think the only way to save the situation is to say that maybe it is Wimsey's fault. Perhaps if he hadn't begun his unsolicited investigation, the younger Miss Whittaker could have developed almost-blamelessly into the elder Miss Whittaker, life-partner and all, and nobody would have found her unnatural.But that's a stretch. So I don't really know what to make of it. I can't help but love the elder Miss Whittaker and Miss Dawson -- but I'm confused and hurt by how Sayers could write them and also write about the younger Miss Whittaker as she did.Race:To begin, while investigating the Dawson family in search of relatives who could have a better claim to Miss Dawson's money than the younger Miss Whittaker, Wimsey stumbles upon the Reverend Hallelujah Dawson. The elderly Rev. Dawson is the grandson of Miss Dawson's great-uncle. The great-uncle had a sugar plantation in the West Indies, and had a child with a Trinidadian woman, to whom he was not married. As this child was the Rev. Dawson's father, the Rev. Dawson has no legal claim to the Dawson money, and he knows this quite well. However, being impoverished, he has come to England to see if his relatives can help him. Before her death Miss Dawson had made him an allowance, and expected that her heir would continue it, but Miss Whittaker had stopped it.Wimsey first hears of the Rev. Dawson through a letter from Miss Climpson. She's reporting on her investigative gossip with a woman who used to be Miss Dawson's housekeeper, and who remembered a "n***er" who visited Miss Dawson. (Miss Climpson reports the housekeeper's extremely racist description while disavowing it herself, but not in a way that makes Miss Climpson entirely innocent of racism.)Wimsey then goes to meet the Rev. Dawson, whom the narrator describes in a way that Sayers clearly intended to be respectful. That doesn't count for very much when she still manages to use the word "rolling" to describe his eyes. Wimsey's attitude to the Reverend is annoying in a very Wimsey-ish way: he feels sorry for him, while making jokes about his first name and about non-Conformist ministers.This is all bad enough, and pretty much what I expected from Sayers when I first realized she was going to introduce a black character.What actually, deeply shocked me has very little to do with how Sayers portrayed the Rev. Dawson. It happens close to the end, when Wimsey is convinced Miss Whittaker is the murderer and only wants evidence to convict her, and when she's most desperate to escape him.Miss Whittaker has needed to use Vera Findlater as an alibi, but she has long known that Miss Findlater, knowing too much, could be used against her. Several months previously, she began to prepare a backup plan by which she could dispose of Miss Findlater and pin the blame on someone else. At that time she bought some articles of men's clothing in the Rev. Dawson's name. Now, she and Miss Findlater go off on a daytrip. Miss Whittaker kills Miss Findlater and arranges footprints (with the shoes she'd bought) and other false evidence suggesting that two men killed Miss Findlater and kidnapped Miss Whittaker. Then she runs away, disguised as another woman whose identity she has already established.One of the pieces of false evidence she leaves is a copy of a magazine, The Black Mask, with the first two words of the title underlined.Investigating the scene, Wimsey discovers this magazine. He has already figured out that Miss Whittaker has faked everything. Although the clothing hasn't been traced yet and so the Rev. Dawson's name hasn't come in, he correctly deduces that Miss Whittaker is trying to suggest that one of the men who are supposed to have kidnapped her and killed Miss Findlater is black, and that one of the female victims marked the magazine cover in hopes of helping a rescuer.Because he doesn't want Miss Whittaker to know that he's on her trail, Wimsey allows the police and newspaper reporters to be deceived by the false evidence. The result:The Whittaker case had begun almost imperceptibly, in the overhearing of a casual remark dropped in a Soho restaurant; it ended amid a roar of publicity that shook England from end to end and crowded even Wimbledon into the second place. The bare facts of the murder and kidnapping appeared exclusively that night in a Late Extra edition of the Evening Views. Next morning it sprawled over the Sunday papers with photographs and full details, actual and imaginary. The idea of two English girls -- the one brutally killed, the other carried off for some end unthinkably sinister, by a black man -- aroused all the passion of horror and indignation of which the English temperament is capable. Reporters swarmed down upon Crow's Beach like locusts -- the downs near Shelly Head were like a fair with motors, bicycles and parties on foot, rushing out to spend a happy week-end amid surroundings of mystery and bloodshed.I am imagining a fan of detective stories in the United States, an African American reader of the Lord Peter Wimsey stories, who buys all of them as soon as they come out, who in 1927 bought Unnatural Death and is reading it at his or her breakfast table with the morning newspaper folded away next to the plate.Whose name is in that newspaper? I don't know in what month Unnatural Death was published in the U.S. If it was May, perhaps the newspaper mentioned Jonathan Carter. If June, perhaps David and Lee Blackman.I found these three men's names on this list, which does not give details, but I can guess what happened to them: Someone made a claim that a bad thing had happened to a white woman, and that a black man had done it. The newspapers reported this. The notion "aroused all the passion and horror of which the [Southern] temperament is capable" -- that might, later, be a line published in one of these newspapers. Thus aroused, a mob of white Southerners rushed out to enact justice by killing a black man -- it didn't matter very much which one. Then, a festive atmosphere, a picnic at the foot of the tree.I am sure that Sayers, with her keen interest in crime, knew about lynching. Lynching did not, I think, occur in Britain, but some incidents were reported internationally, and I don't think Ida B. Wells was the last anti-lynching activist to make a speaking tour of England (in 1893 and 1894). What comes through in Unnatural Death is an awareness of how white people react en masse to the accusation of a black man of raping a white woman -- and perhaps a vague sense that for this reaction, the public are rather vulgar and excitable -- and no awareness of the consequences of this reaction for any black bystander.Unnatural Death is a story about Wimsey's responsibility for the results of his investigations. Encouraging the public to believe the story that Miss Whittaker set up is the most directly irresponsible thing I have ever read of Wimsey doing, and yet Sayers doesn't treat it that way at all. Yes, this is England, not the U.S. South. I can't make that matter to me very much."The Yell came out with the [false story] all over the front page this morning, and a patriotic leader about the danger of encouraging coloured aliens." Wimsey is worried by this -- only because the rival newspaper has obtained the real story and will be eager to publish it, and this might tip off Miss Whittaker.I don't think it occurs to Sayers at all that there are any "coloured aliens" in Britain who could be harmed by this situation, except for the Rev. Dawson. He is arrested. But (as would not be taken for granted in the U.S. South) he is otherwise well, and at the end Wimsey is cheered to learn that he has come into some of Miss Whittaker's money after all. I was relieved and rather surprised to find him come safely to the end of the story...I don't want very much from Sayers here. I don't ask that she leave out Miss Whittaker's false evidence, because I find that entirely believable -- I remember reading a case of a white woman pinning her own crime on a black man just last year. I don't really want Sayers to have left out the Rev. Dawson, because I was happy to see a character of color in one of her stories, even though she described him somewhat clumsily. And the reader is definitely supposed to know that Wimsey is not a perfect sleuth, not a moral paragon, not an example to follow. This story is all about how he might in fact be completely wrong. I would be fine with Wimsey not quite realizing that by encouraging Miss Whittaker's false evidence, he was taking still more people's lives into his hands. But what I do want is for the readers to know that this was what he was doing -- all the readers, not just the contemporary readers who could not not make that connection, and current readers who know a bit about U.S. history.
"But if he thought the woman was being murdered--""My dear Charles," said the man with the monocle, "it doesn't do for people, especially doctors, to go about 'thinking' things. They may get into frightful trouble. In Pritchard's case, I consider Dr. Paterson did all he reasonably could by refusing a certificate for Mrs. Taylor and sending that uncommonly disquieting letter to the Registrar."Thus begins the story of Unnatural Death by Dorothy L Sayers. The two friends and partner sleuths, Inspector Charles Parker and Lord Peter Wimsey are at lunch discussing a case where murder was suspected, but not provable and how doctors can get themselves into all sorts of trouble if they stir things up. And just to prove the point a fellow diner overhears them and says he can certainly attest to the truth of it--because it happened to him. There he was just trying to do his duty as he saw it and the village folk turned against him for stirring up a "mare's nest" and causing trouble.It seems that his elderly patient, Agatha Dawson, suffered from cancer. So, yes, she was ill. But she seemed to be responding well to surgery and treatment, she seemed determined not to die, and her doctor fully expected her to live for several months if not longer. But the wealthy old lady died unexpectedly from no discernible cause. After holding up the funeral in order to do an autopsy which produced no evidence of foul play, the doctor gave up and ascribed the death to "natural causes." But he wasn't happy about the diagnosis....and neither was Lord Peter.Despite Parker's insistence that there was no case, Lord Peter sets off on the trail. A trail of horrible and senseless murder that leads from the quiet Hampshire village to a fashionable London flat. A trail that includes attempts on the life of a London lawyer, Lord Peter's Miss Climpson, and on Lord Peter himself. There will be rumors of kidnapping and a gang with a "black man" as the leader. There will be not-so-innocent picnics in the British countryside. And at the end is a very cunning criminal mind--determined to have his or her own way and armed with a nearly undetectable method of murder.This is another wonderful work by Sayers. Her writing is absolutely lovely and I thoroughly enjoy all the quotes she sprinkles throughout her prose. She manages to address the plight of the unmarried woman in post-WWI society. And I think it brilliant how she envisioned the use of these middle-age ladies as the "eyes and ears" of detectives like Lord Peter. Going in to places where policemen would never get straight answers, armed with knitting needles and tea cakes, and ready to "gossip" their way to clues. Miss Climpson is every bit as endearing as Lord Peter's mother. The book is worth it just for her letters to Lord Peter! Sayers also continues to explore Lord Peter's ethical wrestling...as he gets further and further into the tangles of the mystery and more people are hurt or murdered, he begins to question whether he's doing the right thing. He wonders if he had let the murderer get away with shuffling one dying old woman into eternity just a little bit before her time whether the murderer would have been content and not killed anyone else. He has quite an interesting conversation with a priest over the matter. Personally, given the character of the culprit...I think the next time some got in their way, that person would have been polished off too.Marvelous vintage mystery. And it doesn't grow stale with repeated readings. I can't tell you how many times I've read the Wimsey books. But I always notice something new and I always enjoy the writing.
Do You like book Unnatural Death (1995)?
My favourite so far, I think. The plot itself -- the whodunnit aspect, anyway -- isn't too much trouble to me, because I remember that around the same time as I first read it, someone in NCIS was killed in the same way as the murderer uses multiple times here. So that part seemed rather obvious to me. But Lord Peter is so fun -- and I love Parker, possibly even more in this version than in the books. Miss Climpson is rather fun, too.It's surprising how addictive these radioplays are, too. I wouldn't have read all the books in one go like this.My main complaint with this one -- not enough Bunter.
—Nikki
This is the third Lord Peter Wimsey novel. Wimsey and Charles Parker are interrupted, while in a teashop, by a doctor who overhears them talking about crime. He relates a tale of how he was treating an elderly lady for cancer, whose niece insisted was much nearer than death than he felt she was. When she died suddenly, without leaving a will, the doctor insisted on an autopsy, leading to bad feeling with both the niece, Miss Whittaker, and the local community. Indeed, his actions led to him having to leave the area and begin work elsewhere. Of course, Lord Peter is immediately intrigued - how many people do 'get away with murder'? However, Parker is not conviced there is a case to answer. Presumably, as an officer of the law he had enough real work to be getting on with, but Wimsey is determined to investigate.In this entertaining novel, Lord Peter uses the indefatigable Miss Climpson as his "ears and tongue and especially nose." A spinsterish lady, much in the style of a slightly younger Miss Marple, she is an enquiry agent for Lord Peter; settling herself into a boarding house near where the elderly lady died and sending letters (which you feel the author had great fun writing) reporting on the people and places involved. Before long there is a further murder and even Parker is convinced that something is amiss. Did Miss Whittaker hurry her aunt along to make sure she inherited? Who is the mysterious Mrs Forrest? Is Lord Peter Wimsey himself going to become a victim?This is a real puzzle of a mystery, with endless clues and suspects and sometimes you do feel a little bogged down in information. However, the real fun and sense of righting a wrong does shine through and you happily embark on the journey with Lord Peter, Parker, Miss Climpson and, of course, Bunter. Very enjoyable, brilliantly plotted (if a little confusingly at times) and, of course, much of the pleasure is in the character of Lord Peter Wimsey himself. If you enjoy Golden Age detective fiction then you will love this.
—Susan
This book promised from the beginning to be a very entertaining and enjoyable read. It was my first Sayers novel, and I was very pleased with Wimsey's character, who seemed oddly to combine the genius of Sherlock Holmes with the foppishness of Woodhouse's Bertie Wooster. It was full of quotes from great literature, including very interesting Bible references (which were not blatant at all), but around the middle I felt the story was getting a little too gory for me. There were some lovely characters, but the whole "homicidal maniac" thing turned me off. I was tempted to give this story a "2," but I am inclined to think well of Sayers because of her work in classical education, and also because my mom loves her so much. I'll give the Lord Peter mysteries another try sometime.
—Megan Larson
