Hangman's Holiday, by Dorothy L. Sayers

>> Wednesday, January 07, 2004

Since Dorothy L. Sayers's short story collections can be read out of order, I read the other one I had left, Hangman's Holiday. It was ok, though a bit less enjoyable than the other one: a B-.

This collection includes 4 Lord Peter Wimsey stories, of which my favourite was probably The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey, which takes place in the Basque country (I'm translating from Spanish... PaĆ­s Vasco? I've no idea of what it correct English denomination is!), and has Lord Peter putting on a very imaginative masquarade, with the purpose of rescuing a lady in need. The solution was very ingenious. The Necklace of Pearls, which includes a stolen necklace amid Christmas merriment, was good, too.

In this book I also met another detective, Montague Egg, a wine-salesman who uses his common sense to solve mysteries, and who is forever quoting rhyming advice from the Salesmen's Handbook :-D Quite a few of these have to do with clocks and fairly complex manouvering, which I'm not crazy about. I think my favourite of these stories was Sleuths on the Scent, a story which has a room full of strangers discussing a recent murder, and finding the culprit among them. Oh, and I must mention that Maher-shalal-hashbaz is a pretty upsetting story for anyone who likes cats (a category which includes me).

Finally, there were two stories which didn't include either of these two sleuths, and both her very good, none-the-less. The Man Who Knew How has a man meeting someone who knows how to commit the perfect murder, and shows the consequences to this knowledge, while The Fountain Plays tells of the travails of a man who is being blackmailed.

The complete list of stories is the following:
- The Image in the Mirror (Lord Peter Wimsey)
- The Incredible Elopement of Lord Peter Wimsey (LPW)
- The Queen's Square (Lord Peter Wimsey)
- The Necklace of Pearls (Lord Peter Wimsey)
- The Poisoned Dow '08 (Montague Egg)
- Sleuths on the Scent (Montague Egg)
- Murder in the Morning (Montague Egg)
- One Too Many (Montague Egg)
- Murder at Pentecost (Montague Egg)
- Maher-shalal-hashbaz (Montague Egg)
- The Man Who Knew How
- The Fountain Plays

I think there are other Sayers short story collections, and I'll definitely be looking for them.

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