From the Bookshelf of Reading the Detectives…

Whose Body? (Lord Peter Wimsey, #1)

Dorothy L. Sayers

Start date: May 1, 2022

Finish date: May 31, 2022

Discussion: Group Challenges

Why we're reading this: Next in our Detection Club challenge.
[close] Next in our Detection Club challenge.

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Group Discussions About This Book

Showing 2 of 168 topics — 7,797 comments total

Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
By Susan · 16 posts · 18 views

last updated Sep 12, 2025 08:12PM

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) - SPOILER Thread
By Susan · 13 posts · 22 views

last updated Sep 16, 2025 12:58PM

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What Members Thought

Sep 24, 2016 Hannah rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: libraries-2016, 2016-challenge, mystery-thriller, cals-library, new-authors-2016, classics-2016, cozy-mysteries-2016

3.5 stars
An interesting mystery...Sayers has not made my favorites list in one swoop, but I will probably continue reading the series. There was quite a bit of talking out loud and reasoning aloud, and quite a bit of gory detail, which did get old after awhile, but the mystery was well plotted and reasoned.

9 likes · Like · see review

Jul 19, 2021 Infosifter rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Rtc; at the moment it's too hot here for coherent thought, so I'm not going to tax my molten brain! ...more

3 likes · Like · see review

Jan 18, 2017 John Frankham rated it really liked it

Shelves: crime-detective

A 2020 re-read. Can’t see why I called it an apprentice piece! Some brilliant writing, witty and erudite. But ... with the usual rather over-mechanical explanation of the crime, this time by the perpetrator as an epilogue. So 4* is correct.

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The first Lord Peter Wimsey novel. Whose naked dead body was found in the bath of a couple in Battersea, and can Lord Peter and his Scotland Yard friend Inspector Parker make up for the bungling local inspector? Of course they can.

Having read the whole seri ...more

2 likes · Like · see review

May 03, 2015 SewingandCaring rated it really liked it

Shelves: detectives

A re-read as I've just finished the last Wimsey story. What I'm struck with most is that the Dowager Dutchess is clearly the most well defined and likeable character. She could very easily have written the rest of the series as a double act. I suspect she didn't because it was easier to push her own agendas with younger female characters.

As great as the older books are, you can tell she was using the books as an intellectual exercise towards the end. With this book even though it's clearly an e ...more

1 like · Like · see review

Jun 21, 2020 Tony Fitzpatrick rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This was the first in Sayers' eleven published detective novels featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, amateur detective and younger son of the Duke of Denver. It has many hallmarks of a new series - characters being formed, plot a little uneven, denouement rather long - but I enjoyed it. It is, of course, set in the 1920's, and many aspects are unpleasant - the attitude of the rich to servants, the anti-Semitic attitudes shown to one of the murder victims a rich Jewish businessman. Wimsey also suffers fr ...more

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Feb 08, 2018 Sahifa rated it liked it

Dorothy L. Sayers is cosidered as one of the" Big Four" from the golden age of detective fiction,others being Agatha Christie,Ngaio Marsh and Margery Allingham.
Since I am a great fan of Agatha Christie and is almost running out of her works recently ,I was suggested the other three authors for similar experience.
so, this is my very first dorothy L. sayers.
I enjoyed the narrative ,language and the character build up but the story lacked the Christie factor.
I certainly agree with the fact that it ...more

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