TBR Wednesday: Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers

Whose Body? Dorothy L. Sayers Mystery    1923 Rating: B-

For the first TBR Wednesday I had to choose something on the shorter side.  This happened to be sitting right by my bed in my immediate TBR pile, and I snatched it up.   

Whose Body? is the first of the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries by Dorothy L. Sayers.  In this book Peter has been dabbling at solving crimes for awhile now, but hasn't quite the expertise he has in later books. 

The mystery here is two-fold: both a lost and a found.  Lord Peter is called in to investigate how a naked corpse came to be in the bathtub of an acquaintance of his mother's, Mr. Thipps.  Thipps, a mouse of a man, is all a-quiver at the idea that someone might think he had something to do with this strange man's demise.  Peter is more intrigued at how the body got into the upper-story bathroom when that same bathroom had been unoccupied the night before and nothing untoward seems to have happened between night and morning.  But there he is: naked as a jay except for an ornamental pince-nez.  When Peter begins to dig, with the help of his police friend Mr. Parker, he learns that while this unnamed man has been found, a most certainly named one has also gone missing.  Sir Reuben Levy, a rich financier on the point of making a lucrative deal never never arrived at his crucial appointment.  The lost man and the found man were both Jews, men of middle age, and somewhat overfed.  But beyond superficialities, they are not alike at all.  Could these two cases be related or is this mere coincidence?

The mystery here is really what kept me turning the pages.  Although I succeeded at pegging the correct villain relatively early on, I really did wonder how that man came to be naked and not in his own bathtub.  Otherwise I probably would have skimmed a bit.  Lord Peter, while obviously a nonpareil, is a bit more Bertie Wooster-like than in later books of this series.  Clearly he is brighter than Bertie, a lot brighter, but he also dithers quite a bit, and not always just to distract others from his intellect.  Fortunately Bunter, his ever helpful manservant, is there and just as wonderful as always: observant, fastidious, talented, and comic, he adds so much to this series and to Lord Peter himself.  

The rest of the supporting cast is well done.  Sayers has a deft comic touch in portraying the frailties of humanity: pride, jealousy, crafiness, sheer ineptitude.   Her walk-ons always seem far more dimensional than many author's secondary characters.

One thing that did give me pause was the attitudes various characters had toward the Jews - both specific and general - of this story.  Repeatedly they are referred to as "Hebrews."  Was this the common terminology for Jews of the time?  Various characters spout antisemitic rhetoric, though this never comes out of the mouth of anyone sympathetic, and the author seems to be espousing tolerance and acceptance of Jews, both via Bunter and Lord Peter's dialogue and through characterization.  The Jewish characters are overall quite admirable, far more likable than many of the story's Christians.  I can't downgrade for this, however, as it made me think and consider rather than become angry.  Terminology, after all, isn't offensive in and of itself and most people of this time really were somewhat hostile to Jews.  

Overall, I'm glad I plucked this one out of the TBR pile for TBR Wednesday.  It wasn't a keeper for me, but it did entertain and it was interesting to see Lord Peter in an earlier incarnation. 

tags: books  mysteries  tbr wednesday