Mark Pghfan’s Comments (group member since Mar 06, 2014)

Mark Pghfan’s comments from the The Parlor PI's group.

A deal!

I like Lucy Stone, but I wonder whether a newly released book will be all that easy to get from the library.

Harriet accepts Peter's proposal at the very end of Gaudy Night. The time immediately after their wedding is addressed in Busman's Honeymoon.

I am in for Crossways, just hoping I can get it in time.

Yes! Perhaps you library has them. I bought mine, and they have been re-watched more times than I can count!

In the TV version of Murder Must Advertise, Peter mentions that he pronounces "Death" the way we all do, though he acknowledges that other pronounce it ""de-eth".

I thought I'd start the discussion with just one thread, since the story is so short and nothing particularly spectacular about the ending, spoiler-wise.

The story is a apparently a recently0discovered one written in 1942, some time after the last Peter Wimsey novel, Busman's Honeymoon. Peter and Harriet have three boys and have been married seven years.

Talboys is the name of the childhood home of Harriet, which Peter bought as a surprise when he and Harriet married.

Our mystery surrounds the theft of prize peaches. (A sentence pretty much unique in mystery fiction!) We find soon on that son, Bredon, took two of them on a dare. However, later nearly all of them are found to be missing and without much in the way of clues as to how and by whom. Peter steps in to investigate!

By the way, the name Bredon is from Peter's own. His full name is Peter Death Bredon Wimsey!

I am OK with Crossways, but it is not currently available from my library either. There are four copies and two people on the waiting list. I put in a request, so I hope it will come to me in time. $13 on Kindle, so that is a no-go.

It was not in the original story. I think it was put into the TV version to pad it a little, and also to give a good reason to hand the vial of ethyl chloride to Donovan to smell, since Poirot had a cold.

I'm not as familiar with the short stories as I am with the novels, but I don't think poison is all that common with her.

Christie and Sayers were writing (initially) in the same time frame. Perhaps Sayers just go to this one first!

I've watched them all more times than I can count. I like them all but The Nine Tailors is my favorite.

Since we have all finished, what do you think? In some respects, the ending seemed a little bit too tricky, though it was all explained adequately.

I was wondering how they'd take care of the part about the silent white horses, but Tina seemed to figure that out ahead of time!

The business about the body being above ground being the catch point for the will was quite ingenious!

Nicole: No, I don't think you need to watch the Carmichael videos to understand Lord P! They are quite entertaining, though, if you want to pursue the rest of his adventures.

Since you all are now done, I will start a thread to discuss the ending.

We do find out and it is quite a twist. Our second story of the month, Talboys, has Harriet in it!

I thought this was more of the Ian Carmichael (older) Wimsey.

This story is in the collection Lord Peter Views the Body as well as The Complete Short Stories of Lord Peter. Unless you just bought an individual story, it should be in any of the collections.

Hello, all. I thought it would be good to begin the discussion of this long short story with part one being "no spoilers", in case some of us are not through the whole thing, yet.

The full title is "The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention", by Dorothy Sayers, featuring Lore Peter Wimsey.

Peter is visiting his friends, the Frobisher-Pyms, at a time of a funeral of a well known squire of the village. In the course of the visit, Peter encounters a villager who believes he is doomed to die within a week, as he has seen "the death-coach", a white coach pulled silently by four white horses. So here's the first mystery for Lord P, as sometime later, he see it too.

We link this up with another problem, the estate of the late squire and what goes to his two sons, neither of them particularly nice, at odds with the father and each other.

Further on yet, during prayer vigils in the church for the squire, there is an attack of sorts, which further needs explanation,

Frankly, while I think I'd read this before, not much seemed familiar, and I was truthfully wondering how all of this could be related, much less explained.

We will discuss the solution in another thread.

If you want, I can host, starting with The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention, on Monday. Will that suit?

I suggest two stories from the Lord Peter collection. The first is a longish story, The Undignified Melodrama of the Bone of Contention. It is the longest story in the book, and I thought there would be more to sink our teeth into. The second is Talboys, the final story. It tells us a bit about Lord Peter in his days after he marries Harriet Vane.

Open to other thoughts, though!