Five Red Herrings (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #7)

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Five Red Herrings (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries #6)

3.93 of 5 stars 3.93 · rating details · 6,076 ratings · 185 reviews

The body was on the pointed rocks alongside the stream. The artist might have fallen from the cliff where he was painting, but there are too many suspicious elements - particularly the medical evidence that proves he'd been dead nearly half a day, though eyewitnesses had seen him alive a scant hour earlier. And then there are the six prime suspects - all of them artists, a...more

Paperback, 354 pages

Published October 1st 1995 by HarperTorch (first published 1931)

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Jul 21, 2012 Jane rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Where I got the book: purchased (used) on Amazon. Continuing my Lord Peter Wimsey re-read.

Ah, the Wimsey book I never liked. I like it better now, but I still think it lacks something of the other books. Wimsey is in Scotland, presumably getting away from it all (it, by now, meaning Harriet Vane, who was in the last book). Somewhat incongruously, he is hanging out in an artists' community, when one of the painters, an argumentative bugger called Campbell, is found dead. And Wimsey immediately kn...more Where I got the book: purchased (used) on Amazon. Continuing my Lord Peter Wimsey re-read.

Ah, the Wimsey book I never liked. I like it better now, but I still think it lacks something of the other books. Wimsey is in Scotland, presumably getting away from it all (it, by now, meaning Harriet Vane, who was in the last book). Somewhat incongruously, he is hanging out in an artists' community, when one of the painters, an argumentative bugger called Campbell, is found dead. And Wimsey immediately knows he's murdered, because of a detail that you really have to have read the book once before to understand - foreknowledge makes the whole of the book much clearer. I always kind of resented Sayers for not giving the reader that clue early on, because after all isn't the whole point of a classic murder mystery that the reader has ALL the facts presented to them?

So we end up with six suspects, all painters, and the novel goes into excruciating detail examining the movements and motives of each of them. Railway timetables and other kinds of timetable are much in evidence, making this a hard read. In addition many of the characters speak in broad Scots, and peersonally ah'm no verra guid at followin' sich a mess o' dialogue, ye ken. Worse, we even have one witness who talkth like thith - I think Sayers is indicating here that the gentleman is Jewish, as she was cheerfully bigoted after the manner of her generation.

And yet if you have the patience to wade through the Scots and the timetables and all the business about bicycles, it's a very clever mystery. Although Wimsey solves it NOT on the strength of all the miles and miles of careful reconstruction of the crime but on the strength of the aforementioned unspoken clue, which means that basically the entire middle 4/5 of the book is a RED HERRING, so yeesh.

For Wimsey devotees there are also some nice little character touches, foreshadowing the deepening of character that was to come in the other Wimsey/Vane books. So for me it was fun to encounter what almost came across as new information. And, of course, cleverly written, although the older I get the more I notice the instability of POV that haunts the books. But, you see, DLS had the trick of making us into drooling Wimsey fans, showing the power of a damn good character to make up for any amount of technical faults.
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Jan 13, 2013 Kaethe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: classics, mystery, humor

Bunter's delivery is compared to The Castle of Otranto. I'm going to have to read that.

As a whole, the book is very like a logic puzzle: lots of train tables, and six different suspects, all of whom are painters, and tons of working out routes. And the ALIBI is the thing compelling the complex scene-setting of the murder, to my amusement, because who ever worries about alibis in real life?

No doubt many would be offended by the Scottish dialect as written (since the assumption is that the English...more

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Aug 26, 2007 Maria rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: i-own, mystery, fiction

Meh. I am told Sayers wrote this at a time when railroad timetable mysteries were popular, just to prove she could. I believe it. Basically, the first half of the book features Lord Peter and all the policemen going through all the permutations of Scotland's mindboggling train schedule, as well as six suspects who are barely distinguishable from each other. During the second half, the plot really picks up, and we finally get a little characterisation of each of the suspects, as well as some much...more

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Nov 28, 2007 John rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone who likes a good mystery

Lately I've been reading a lot of mysteries. They are a fun way of spending an evening at home when there is nothing good to watch and the secondary literature in my academic discipline begins to seem a little tedious. *The Five Red Herrings* is a fine example of the genre. Unlike other Dorothy Sayers books, the mystery was done in the form of character sketches: every chapter focused on a single character, and the chapters were even named after the theme character, and the style of writing chan...more Lately I've been reading a lot of mysteries. They are a fun way of spending an evening at home when there is nothing good to watch and the secondary literature in my academic discipline begins to seem a little tedious. *The Five Red Herrings* is a fine example of the genre. Unlike other Dorothy Sayers books, the mystery was done in the form of character sketches: every chapter focused on a single character, and the chapters were even named after the theme character, and the style of writing changes in many of them to reflect the person that Sayers is describing. I think I saw a movie of the book a few years ago, and it completely skipped this important structural element. I suppose Sayers got the idea to do this from the premise: the five red herrings seems to suggest multiple takes on the same situation. Admittedly, some of these takes were not as well done as others, and some chapters didn't carry out the large scale trends, but it seemed an interesting approach to a murder mystery. The story was also structured sort of like a fugue, except with contrasting motifs, that all reach a climax in the later chapters where you get multiple stories and multiple names in the chapter titles. I also really liked the opening: the fact that Sayers deliberately withheld the key fact, which even though I vaguely guessed it (I can't give up on a challenge!), added a sort of excitement to the book, since I was strongly motivated to find out if I was right. I also admit that I liked the Scottish setting, the fact that it involved painters (how many murder mysteries are there of painters?), and the key clue was unique, and the fact that it was so ingeniously constructed. I mean it takes real skill to come up with a plot that is so complicated, so consistent, and allows at least four or five equally persuasive versions of events. It is masterful. The only qualm I might have is that it doesn't emphasize any of the standard relationships that one finds in Sayers' books: Bunter and Wimsey, Harriet Vane and Whimsey, and it is even lacking some of the relationships within the Wimsey family, all things that most Sayers fans probably depend upon. But I suppose that this added a certain charm. Like Jane Austen's *Mansfield Park* it is a different sort of Sayers, and variety, after all, is the spice of life.(less)

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Jan 09, 2012 mark monday rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: murdertime

read during my AIG Years

I Remember: surely Sayers can do better... the intriguing mystery gets lost in the unceasingly tedious recounting of all the various permutations of a train schedule... chapter after chapter of train schedules... TRAIN SCHEDULE, TRAIN SCHEDULES, STOP IT ALREADY!... where are the suspects?... oh there they are, only took a half a book to get to them... some good lines here and there... the characters of Wimsey & Bunter remain wonderful but are given little play.

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Jun 09, 2010 Nikki rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime, mystery

Some bits of this were funny and just perfectly Peter Wimsey-ical. But a lot of it was routine painstaking working out of timetables and alibis and who was lying when and about what. It doesn't help that one rather feels that the murdered man deserved it, and the suspects don't. Or that the dialogue is mostly written with a stab at phonetically spelling out the Scottish accent/dialect. It's hard to read, and it isn't terribly rewarding, allow the last fifty pages or so is wonderful.

There isn't e...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Felisa Rosa rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery, popular-fiction

I absolutely adore Dorothy Sayers, but sometimes her plots get a overly detailed and technical. This book suffered from an abundance of train schedules and a severe shortage of Bunter, the world's greatest manservant. Still a good read, though.

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Mar 06, 2013 Madeline rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: detective-fiction

This book has a fun setup, from a mystery aspect: in a small artist's community in Scotland, a man named Campbell is found dead at the base of a cliff, having apparently fallen to his death. But it wasn't an accident, obviously, and soon the local police, aided by his wonderfulness Lord Peter Wimsey, are on the case. There are some complications: Campbell has multiple enemies in the town, the six most likely suspects all have alibis for the time of death, and although Campbell was killed sometim...more

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Dec 22, 2012 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: classics-stories, library-sale, detective-fiction

Is there anything more fun than a mystery novel? (Mystery movies won’t be counted as answers to this purely rhetorical question.) Seriously, though, mysteries are good for logical and analytical thinking and moral convictions, not to mention whiling a few hours away in fun and excitment!

The Story.

When Campbell’s body is found lifeless in the burn by Minnoch River, the police have no reason to suspect that his death was aught but an accident. It would be very easy for a man painting so near the c...more

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Aug 25, 2010 Victoria Mixon rated it 3 of 5 stars

The problem with Dorothy L. Sayers isn't whether or not she was good. She was. The problem was that she knew it.

So when she came to write Five Red Herrings (sold in the U.S. for some reason under the title Suspicious Characters), it wasn't enough to have designed a rollicking good mystery in which the reader is told right up front, "The murderer is one of these six characters." It wasn't even enough to have spent time in the obscure little Scottish backwater where the mystery is set perfecting...more

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May 14, 2008 Writerlibrarian rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1920s-1930s, may-pile, mystery, read2008

This one was difficult in a way I didn't except : the Scottish accent in print. It definitely adds colours and atmosphere but it's a pain to read. The whole five of the six suspects are red herring is interesting but gets a bit muddle near the end. The culprit is found and the police is told in a exquisite reenactment (we are in 1931) that includes missed trains, wayward bicycles and second breakfast. Still, Sayers more average work is better than most mystery novels.

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Jul 26, 2011 Stuart rated it 4 of 5 stars

(A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery) It was interesting to read this book, written in 1931, and compare it to the Maisie Dobbs books by Jacqueline Winspear, set in 1931, but written in the 21st century. The Maisie Dobbs books have much more emphasis on the effects of the First World War than does the Peter Wimsey book. Perhaps Dorothy Sayers was trying to create a certain amount of escapism, in that she and her readers knew perfectly well the effects of WW1, whereas Jacqueline Winspear has to explain i...more

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Dec 18, 2010 F.R. rated it 3 of 5 stars

In the second chapter of ‘Five Red Herrings’, as Lord Peter Wimsey examines the newly discovered corpse, he starts to frantically look around for a specific item. A police sergeant asks him what he’s hunting for – and the following paragraph appears in parenthesis:

“Here Lord Peter Wimsey told the Sergeant what he was looking for and why, but as the intelligent reader will readily supply these details for himself, they are omitted from this page.”

Now I would say that virtually no reader is going...more In the second chapter of ‘Five Red Herrings’, as Lord Peter Wimsey examines the newly discovered corpse, he starts to frantically look around for a specific item. A police sergeant asks him what he’s hunting for – and the following paragraph appears in parenthesis:

“Here Lord Peter Wimsey told the Sergeant what he was looking for and why, but as the intelligent reader will readily supply these details for himself, they are omitted from this page.”

Now I would say that virtually no reader is going to be able to guess what the sleuthing peer is actually searching for (it isn’t even mentioned in the text before this point), and since it proves to be absolutely crucial to how Winsey carries out his investigation, this omission is therefore cheating. It is a highly inelegant trick and terribly unfair on Sayers’ part. After all the reader is supposed to be given a shot at solving the case for themselves, and having such an important piece of information hidden away makes the entire book – which does have a great deal that’s entertaining within it – feel like a bit of con.

You won’t need to be one of detective fiction’s great operators then, to note that I am still somewhat ambivalent about Dorothy L. Sayers and Lord Peter Wimsey. And that’s a shame as there’s a lot here that I liked. The setting is a small community in Scotland where there are seemingly dozens of painters. When a particularly objectionable member of their breed is slain, there are six obvious suspects – five of whom are red herrings. The mechanics of them all having dodgy alibis is incredibly well done, the setting is nicely evoked and there are some wonderful lines – for example, a Police Inspector answering questions with “the resentful accent of a schoolboy burdened with too much homework.”

There is also a nice post-modern element to this 1931 mystery. It’s noted which characters have mystery books they could have purloined ideas from; a ‘red herring’ itself is of course a term used far more often in detective novels than in actual detecting; while towards the end of the book, when Wimsey raises the possibility of the killer not being one of the six, he is chastised for being like the worst kind of detective fiction. It’s interesting that even this early in the detective novel’s surge to the top, the genre was capable of reaching in to itself.

On the down side it does tip its hat as to whodunit a tad too early, and I could have down without the renderings of Scottish dialect from the more menial characters. And then of course there’s the fact that Sayers doesn’t play by the rules as far as the reader is concerned. But if you go into the mystery forearmed on that point, having steeled yourself adequately, you should find that there’s a lot between these covers to give you pleasure.
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Jun 15, 2011 Ari rated it 3 of 5 stars Recommends it for: mystery bufs

The plot is somewhat overcomplicated and the evidence is a bit too twisty for me. Much of the plot centers around the details of the trains that the murderer may have taken. It feels like the original of which Monty Python's Agatha Christie sketch is the parody. I assume from the title of the sketch that Christie also wrote a novel with a similar feel.

This book has three redeeming features for me. The setting is an artist's colony in western Scotland, which is described in loving detail from Say...more

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Sep 10, 2012 sabisteb rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: hörspiele, krimi-thriller

Wimsey macht Urlaub in Schottland, genau gesagt in Galloway. Aber nicht einmal hier ist die Welt heil, denn erneut stolpert er über einen Mord. Sandy Campbell ein eher mäßig tallentierter Maler, dafür umso besserer Trinker, der mit fast allen anderen Malern der Gegend im Streit war, wurde ermordet. Der Mord ist so arrangiert worden, dass es wie ein Unfall aussehen soll, doch die Farbe auf dem Bild ist noch nass, der Maler jedoch bereits viel zu lange tot, um dieses Bild gemalt haben zu können. E...more Wimsey macht Urlaub in Schottland, genau gesagt in Galloway. Aber nicht einmal hier ist die Welt heil, denn erneut stolpert er über einen Mord. Sandy Campbell ein eher mäßig tallentierter Maler, dafür umso besserer Trinker, der mit fast allen anderen Malern der Gegend im Streit war, wurde ermordet. Der Mord ist so arrangiert worden, dass es wie ein Unfall aussehen soll, doch die Farbe auf dem Bild ist noch nass, der Maler jedoch bereits viel zu lange tot, um dieses Bild gemalt haben zu können. Einer seiner sechs Kollegen muss es gewesen sein, alle haben ein mehr oder minder gutes Alibi und alle verhalten sich verdächtig.

Erneut ein BBC Hörspiel aus dem Jahr 1975 mit Ian Carmichael als Lord Peter und Glyn Houston als sein Butler Bunter. Man merkt dem Hörspiel natürlich sein alter ein wenig an, der Aufnahmetechnik damals war eben nicht so ausgefeilt wie heute, der Klang ist eben 70er Jahre, aber charmant.
Die Umsetzung ist, wie man es von einem BBC Hörspiel erwartet: Hervorragende, rollengerechte Sprecher, gelungene Geräuschkulisse, so gut wie kein Soundtrack. In der rollengerechten Besetzung liegt für deutsche Hörer auch das große Problem. Die Geschichte spielt in Schottland. Wer dieses Hörspiel hören möchte sollte mit dem Schottischen vertraut sein, denn einige Worte unterscheiden sich und es gibt Lautverschiebungen. Man sollte also mal in Schottland gewesen sein, vielleicht mal Walter Scott im Original gelesen haben oder einfach damit leben, dass man einige der Sprecher eben nicht komplett versteht.
Mein Hauptproblem bei diesem Hörspiel war jedoch ein anderes: die sechs Verdächtigen sind sich zu ähnlich. Alle sechs sind Maler, haben sehr ähnliche oder fast gleiche Stimmen und so waren sie für mich nicht bis kaum unterscheidbar. Ich hatte erhebliche Schwierigkeiten der Ermittlung zu folgen, da ich die Alibisund Motive teils kaum noch zuordnen konnte. Die Auflösung ist logisch rekonstruiert, dennoch ist der Fall über eine große Strecke einfach nur verwirrend und ein mit raten war für mich jedenfalls nicht möglich.
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Mar 28, 2012 Dorothea rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. I do think this was really good as a mystery puzzle -- at least, I think it was good, but I think the proper way to appreciate it is to play along, write all the clues down, make one's own railway schedule charts and so on, but both times I've read this book I've been too impatient for that. I think that if I had, the part at the end in which the investigators go through six different theories would have been fun. I could have compared my own notes and seen if I'd thought of everything. But as I...more

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Feb 23, 2011 Jessie rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, own, mystery-british, mystery-1900-to-1950, mystery-cozy

This is an example of the police procedural at its most plodding and colorful characterization at its finest. The book takes place in the artist's colony at Galloway district of Scotland in 1930-ish (book published in 1931). An artist is found dead and, as the title indicates, there are six suspects of whom five are "red herrings". Missing suspects, stolen bicycles, Scottish train schedules, and lying witnesses move suspicion from one suspect to the other and back again throughout the book. Saye...more

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Aug 14, 2012 Sandra rated it 3 of 5 stars

I enjoyed the characters in this book, led by Lord Peter Wimsey. Dorothy Sayers draws characters well, and gives each character, whether a major or minor one, its due. And I did enjoy the setting and the language, which reminded me of my Scottish grandmother telling someone "Dinna fash yoursel', it doesna matter." She is an author who pays great attention to details, and I have enjoyed that in other books she has written.

In this book, however, the details really took over the story, and kept bri...more

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May 05, 2011 Dianne rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: crime-british, detective

This is a difficult book to read, and I would recommend starting out with a notebook and pencil to follow events.
An aggressive and unpleasant artist is found dead by a burn in Scotland. Lord Peter Wimsey enters the scene and decides that it is a murder. Dorothy Sayers lets her readers know that at the scene there is a clue to be identified. This is reinforced later on and it is easy to identify the culprit if one does not get bamboozled by railway timetables. There are six artist suspects, but f...more

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Apr 15, 2011 Terra rated it 3 of 5 stars

Harrumph. I honestly toyed with giving this two stars. As you kids have undoubtedly figured out if you have been following my recent reading voyages, I think the Lord Peter Wimsey books are the cat's pajamas, the bee's knees, and many other forms of animal clothing and insect anatomy. In short: THEY ARE REALLY VERY AWESOME. However, this particular one just didn't grab me. There were some good zingers in there (and the reenactment of the crime was pretty fantastic--the best section of the book),...more

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Dec 20, 2011 Laura Rittenhouse rated it 2 of 5 stars

I hate to criticise a Peter Wimsey book but I'm afraid this one just didn't do it for me. It lacked much of the farce of the others I've read (possibly in no small part because Bunter, the long suffering butler, was almost totally absent). The story was just more than I could handle. 1 death, 6 suspects, 5 of whom were red herrings. Nothing wrong with that, the problem came with the intricacies of the narrowing down of the suspect list. I felt I needed a detailed map of the region and a train ti...more

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Jun 23, 2009 Lightreads rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: fiction, historical, mystery

Doubling back to a Peter Wimsey book from earlier in the chronology. The one where Peter solves the murder of a painter in a small Scottish town.

I frankly find it astonishing that the woman who wrote Gaudy Night also wrote this. It's a long slog of tedious detail seasoned with train schedules. I had a hard time keeping the six murder suspects straight, and it didn't seem to really matter.

Saved from utter ignominy by two things: (1) Peter occasionally breaking into blank verse just because he can...more

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Apr 22, 2013 Laura rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio-books, british-literature, suspense-thriller, read-2013

From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
Dorothy L Sayers' mystery with Ian Carmichael as the upper class sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.

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Jun 28, 2010 Kevin rated it 2 of 5 stars

Following a second read, this still remains my least favorite of all of the Peter Wimsey novels. Essentially a train schedule mystery, it relies heavily on intricate timing and maps. I certainly appreciated the intricacy of Sayer's plotting, but keeping up with paragraphs that read like algebra problems (If he took 1:15 at Ayr, he could have made it to Kircudbright in time for the 2:15 Express, or he could have taken the 2:45 local, stopping at Homestead, where the man with the gray flannel suit...more

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Feb 26, 2012 Moira Fogarty rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, audiobook

Yikes. I love Lord Peter, but this might well be Sayers' worst effort.

Five Red Herrings has a lovely setting, taking place in Galloway. The characters are nicely penned, with an affectionate look at Scotland's dogged policemen and the recalcitrant local artists and fishermen whose obstinate refusal to tell the truth prevents them from serving justice.

However, the plot is weak, repetitive and dull. Unless you are obsessed with train tickets, schedules and the minutiae of bicycle speeds, models...more Yikes. I love Lord Peter, but this might well be Sayers' worst effort.

Five Red Herrings has a lovely setting, taking place in Galloway. The characters are nicely penned, with an affectionate look at Scotland's dogged policemen and the recalcitrant local artists and fishermen whose obstinate refusal to tell the truth prevents them from serving justice.

However, the plot is weak, repetitive and dull. Unless you are obsessed with train tickets, schedules and the minutiae of bicycle speeds, models and tire treads, you should likely avoid this.

The retelling of the story of the murder happens so often that one would suspect that Campbell was killed on Groundhog Day. Seriously, six investigations of six suspects is WAY too many. Even the 1985 movie Clue had only 3 alternate endings. This book comes perilously close to being a Choose Your Own Adventure novel.

Then, to make sure the horse has really been flogged properly, every person who worked on solving the case gets to present their opinions on how the murder was carried out - nobody agrees on a suspect, of course - and then Lord Peter, comparing himself once again to Sherlock Holmes, comes up with the somewhat unlikely solution, pulling two rabbits out of his hat to make his case.

My boyfriend, hearing me moan about how painfully long and boring the audiobook was, asked: "Who did it, the painter?" I groaned out loud. "They're ALL painters! I can't tell who's who anymore!" Lack of differentiation between suspects annoys me. When Chapter Seven arrived, I felt certain I had reached the end. Nope. Three chapters left... Zzz.

Struggling to the end, I waited for the whodunnit. Reenactment of the crime was slightly more interesting than the rest, but utterly unbelievable (no police department would agree to such shenanigans).

I give this a pass. Do yourself a favour: skip over this hot mess to the next book, "Have His Carcase". She wrote that in 1932, the year my Dad was born. It's a much better mystery. You'll enjoy it more, I promise.(less)

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Mar 04, 2009 Mike rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: mystery

Dorothy Sayers definitely wrote in an era when readers didn't expect their plots to develop as quickly, but then again she also wrote in an era when readers expected a lot more content and mystery in their murder mysteries (whereas most murder mysteries these days are just Tom Clancy thrillers with the ex-army ranger main character replaced with a detective -- "who must discover the murderer, before he's the next victim!...." DUM DUM DUUUUMMM!!!). Dorothy Sayers is without doubt one of the murde...more

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Sep 28, 2010 Brittany rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: historicalfiction, mystery

This book is certainly not guilty of the complaint I've had of a few other Dorothy Sayers books--namely that the plot was too easy to figure out. In fact, with this book, I actually kind of couldn't figure out the plot even after it was explained. There were five suspects to keep track of, which Sayers, with her prodigious intellect, did nicely. However, I had trouble keeping up. Much of the plot swung on train schedules, and there were neither maps nor charts to help a poor American out. I also...more

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Jun 05, 2012 Nikki rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, crime

In my review of this the first time, I wrote: "If I were rereading the series some time in a couple of years, my advice to myself would be to skip this one, or just read the last fifty pages."

I haven't listened to my own advice, plainly. I've listened to the whole radioplay and reread the whole novel -- in quite close succession, even. And it doesn't really improve. The last fifty pages are still the best part, and though the plot is cleverly constructed, it's so labyrinthine as to be utterly in...more

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Sep 17, 2011 Bev Hankins rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery, vintage-mystery

Five Red Herrings (aka Suspicious Characters when first released in the States) is Dorothy L Sayers' flirtation with a railroad tables crime. The first time I read it I spent a great deal of brain power trying to keep up with all the times and trains and didn't get it at all. In all subsequent readings (including this one), I take the times and trains and tickets as read and just sit back and enjoy the ride.

What we have is an apparently very simple death in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. After a night...more Five Red Herrings (aka Suspicious Characters when first released in the States) is Dorothy L Sayers' flirtation with a railroad tables crime. The first time I read it I spent a great deal of brain power trying to keep up with all the times and trains and didn't get it at all. In all subsequent readings (including this one), I take the times and trains and tickets as read and just sit back and enjoy the ride.

What we have is an apparently very simple death in Kirkcudbright, Scotland. After a night that well represents his life--quarreling with just about everyone he meets--Sandy Campbell, a local hot-headed artist, sets out for a little morning painting at one of his favorite spots. Later that afternoon his body is found lying on the pointed rocks along the stream just below his painting gear. It looks as though Sandy stepped a little too close to the cliff's edge while scrutinizing his morning's work and took a fatal tumble onto the rocks below.

But our favorite aristocratic sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, is on the spot enjoying a bit of holiday himself. One that turns into a busman's holiday when he can't stay away from the scene of the crime. It's Wimsey who first suggests that it might not be the simple accident that it appears. He first senses that something is wrong when an item very vital to the scene that has been set cannot be found--not among the dead man's gear nor anywhere in the area surrounding the "accident." There is also the fact that rigor would seem to indicated that the man has been dead long before the morning's painting. When all is said and done, there are six suspects--all fellow painters with reason to wish Campbell dead--it is up to Lord Peter to separate the five red herrings from the fish that must be netted for the crime.

Pairing a reading of this book with the filmed version starring Ian Carmichael is an absolute must at some point. In fact, this is one of the rare times that I would say that the filmed version outshines the book. In the novel Sayers goes through a very long and labored process at the end--taking the reader through every shred of evidence and showing how it might (or might not) apply to every single suspect. The film version condenses things down very nicely without losing any of the mystery. And it's worth the price of admission to see Wimsey recreate the murder using Bunter as the corpse (although the part of the corpse is played by Sir Maxwell in the book). "'Hi!' said the corpse. 'You shut up,' said Wimsey, 'you're dead.'

Another slightly tiresome bit is the dialect. After reading this one several times, I'm better able to sail through the broad Scots dialect...but, if that weren't enough, Sayers also provides us with a traveling salesman with a lisp. A bit too much, DLS, a bit too much. (Fortunately, the filmed version ditches the lisp as well).

Despite these two draw-backs, I still enjoy the story. It's nice to see Wimsey out of his British element (and to see Bunter wrestling with the local terms for various cooking supplies). I have a good time with the various artistic lessons we get--and it's much more entertaining than the education in campanology that we get in The Nine Tailors (not that I don't enjoy learning about bell-ringing, but it does go on a bit). And I love the reenactment of the crime. Four stars.(less)

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Jun 09, 2009 The Library Lady rated it 1 of 5 stars

My feelings about this book are summed up by something Lord Peter says about himself in Jill Paton-Walsh's extension of the Sayers books, A Presumption of Death:

"Peter-after-Harriet is easier to live with than Peter-before-Harriet. That Peter makes me squirm whenever I think of him"

Some of the pre-Harriet books in the series are wonderful. But for, Lord Peter only comes fully to life when Harriet comes upon the scene.
And this particular book just doesn't hold me, though I've tried reading it at...more

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Kindle English My...: March 2013 Group Read - Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L sayers	43	46	Mar 27, 2013 11:24am
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Mystery

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Mystery > Crime

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Mystery > Detective

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European Literature > British Literature

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Classics

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Thriller > Mystery Thriller

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Mystery > Murder Mystery

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Mystery > Cozy Mystery

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About Dorothy L. Sayers

Dorothy Leigh Sayers (Oxford, 13 June 1893 – Witham, 17 December 1957) was a renowned British author, translator, student of classical and modern languages, and Christian humanist.

Dorothy L. Sayers is best known for her mysteries, a series of novels and short stories set between World War I and World War II that feature English aristocrat and amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. However, Sayers herse...more

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Books by Dorothy L. Sayers

Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #1)

Unnatural Death (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #3)

Murder Must Advertise (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #10)

Strong Poison (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, #6)

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Trivia About Five Red Herrings

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Quotes from Five Red Herrings

“Still, it doesn't do to murder people, no matter how offensive they may be.” — 30 people liked it

“I think the most joyous thing in life is to loaf around and watch another bloke do a job of work. Look how popular are the men who dig up London with electric drills. Duke's son, cook's son, son of a hundred kings, people will stand there for hours on end, ear drums splitting. Why? Simply for the pleasure of being idle while watching other people work.” — 6 people liked it

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Five Red Herrings (Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries #6)

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