So, Five Red Herrings by Dorothy L. Sayers is my second book of the month (the first being a lurid but fun romance set in Montana :-D) but I'm treating it as the first of my Autumn reads... it's on the 'Autumn' shelf I created for my Kindle as a matter of fact. For those who like books set in Scotland this fits the bill. It's set in the south west of that country in the two counties of Kirkcudbrightshire and Wigtownshire... the county town of which, Wigtown, is Scotland's version of the the English book town, Hay-on-Wye. Although it wasn't of course when this book was first published in 1931.
The town of Kirkcudbright, at the mouth of the river Dee, is a bit of an artist's colony type of place, they flock there for the beauty of the area and the light and so on. Lord Peter Wimsey spends a lot of time there, not because he's much of an artist, he just likes the place. The inhabitants have got used to his eccentricities and the artists do not mind him popping in to chat and watch them paint. The other main preoccupation of the people who live in this area is fishing and the two occupations fit very nicely together in the town.
The story begins with an argument in a pub. Campbell, a thoroughly Bad Lot who gets on with no one, has been drinking and is looking for a fight. Wimsey is present and helps to cool things down but Campbell still leaves in a strop. He's found dead the next morning, in the river in an isolated spot. He'd been painting and it was thought he accidently lost his footing and got swept away and the the knocks and bruises that are evident were caused by his body getting a bashing on the rocks.
Of course, none of this is actually so. It's discovered that his injuries happened 'before' he went into the water and foul play is very soon suspected. Lord Peter is naturally there like a shot and the local police don't seem to mind this as he has the reputation of being good at solving this convoluted kind of murder. This one, however, tests him. There are half a dozen suspects, all artists because before the murderer left the scene he painted a picture in the style of the dead man, Campbell. All of these artists had some ongoing disagreement going on with the deceased, be it marital jealousy, neighbourly disputes over boundaries, or just plain dislike of a boor of a man. Several of them choose this moment to disappear off the face of the Earth but does this mean anything at all?
OK, well this is one of those 'keep your wits about you' kind of reads because the details are quite hard to keep track of and so are the suspects. To be brutally honest I struggled with this book. The six artists all melded into one and each time one was mentioned I had stop and think why he was a suspect and think of something different about him to remind me who he was. That's no way to have to read a book.
Worse than the struggle to remember the suspects was two other things. Firstly, Sayers decided on writing the broad Scottish dialect as it sounds and that was tremendously difficult to decipher at times. I'm sure I missed important details because of it. Secondly, there is an absolute obsession with train times and timetables. I have come across this before in a few other vintage crime stories but oh my goodness, it was so tedious here.
I hate calling any Lord Peter book tedious but sadly it really was in places. On the plus side, the Scottish setting was delightful and beautifully depicted. And I gather Kirkcudbright really 'is' an artist's haven, so that was interesting and something I didn't know. And Wimsey himself is never less than fun to read and there's some good and funny dialogue in this. Also, I did not guess who the culprit was but I'm not sure I ever stood much of a chance of that! So it wasn't all negative. That said, this is definitely not a favourite Wimsey book, that would be books such as Clouds of Witness, Have his Carcase, Gaudy Night, Busman's Holiday. And I cannot recommend the Lord Peter short stories enough, I have a collection of all of them and they are just superb.
17 comments:
Cath, I heard this on BBC Sounds and thought exactly the same as you. I was completely confused as to who was who, and as it all dragged on and on I really didn’t care. The solution, as I vaguely recall, was unconvincing.
I much preferred The Nine Tailors.
Ps - didn’t intend to post as ‘anonymous’! It’s Rosemary here :)
It looks as though you were only 'okay' with this story from the series. I was going to ask if it was just this particular book, or was it a series you could take or leave in general, but you answered that one nicely, thanks!
I guess that in a quite lengthy series, there must come a 'sticking point' eventually and as this book is about mid-way through, perhaps this was the author's nemesis of a storyline, as your list of more enjoyable titles come from both before and after this one.
I can remember watching the entire made for television series, with Ian Carmichael taking the part of Lord Peter Wimsey. Although I did read many of the books back in my teenage years, many of the storylines are quite sketchy, so this is another of those vintage series which could use some re-reading!!
I love the new cover re-prints to :)
I do love that Scotland setting! but I think I would have gotten a bit lost with so many suspects to track and remember...and I'm really not a fan of heavy dialect in a book. It slows down the narrative for me and makes it not as fun.
It seems as though this had a lot more potential than it delivered. It's always so disappointing when a story becomes tedious. Here's to a more satisfying read coming soon. My September for books has been less than stellar so far.
I'm sorry to hear that this one didn't do it for you, Cath. I agree with you that Gaudy Night and Have His Carcase are better. You make an interesting point about the dialect. On the one hand, it takes place in Scotland. On the other, writing dialect in that way can make it hard to understand what's being said, and it can pull the reader out of the story. I'm glad you've enjoyed Sayers' short stories, and I appreciate your candor on this novel.
Cath, I think this is my least liked Dorothy Sayers novel. Can't say for sure because it was so long since I read it, but that is how I remember it. Some of my favorites are the same as yours, except I was not that fond of Gaudy Night the 2nd time I read it. Maybe someday I will try it again. And Nine Tailors is one I want to read again.
Yes, I think this is one I have never reread!
Hi Rosemary! Thanks for telling that it was you. :-) Yes, I agree about The Nine Tailors, I loved the frozen, East Anglian, setting and atmosphere in that one. And the Scottish setting in this one was one of the best features. Unfortunately that was pretty much it when it came to enjoyment. I'm not all that sure how I got to the end because, like you, I just didn't care.
Yvonne: Yes, 'OK' but only just. I nearly lost the will to live about halfway through but was determined to get to the end. I feel awful saying that about a DLS book. I don't think I ever watched Ian Carmichael as Wimsey, if I did it's gone. I do remember him playing Bertie Wooster alongside Denis Price as Jeeves but preffered Hugh Laurie's version to be honest. The new covers are great!
Lark: Yes, that SCottish setting was wonderful and nice because it's an area of the country you don't often read about. Most books go for The Highlands and Islands or Edinburgh or Glasgow. Heavy dialect must seem like a great idea to authors to add authenticity but I want to say, 'Don't do it!' because it makes it heavy going for so many readers.
Diane: Yes, I was really looking forward to reading it so it was quite a disappointment really. Sorry to hear your bookish September has not started well. Fingers crossed for better reads for you soon.
Margot: Thanks! Exactly, it is SCotland and some dialect is necessary. But that was overkill. I had a slight advantage because I'm British and I hear a lot of Scottish accents on TV (not so much here in Devon) so I'm used to it. But if I struggled, how people from overseas cope I've no idea. It must seem like a foreign language. Which I suppose it is. LOL
Tracy: I suspect this might be a lot of peoples' least favourite DLS, which is a shame because there's the bones of a good story here... but 'maybe' a short story. It does actually read like a padded-out short story and I wonder if that's what happened because the book lies between two good Harriet Vane books and there no mention of her whatsoever, which there sort of ought to be...
Constance: Yep, and that does not surprise me at all! LOL
I really don't like any dialect in books. I spend too much time trying to figure it out, and I lose what is going on. A word here or there is okay, but not tons of it.
In terms of the "train times and timetables", this is how I felt during The Nine Tailors. It felt like a very hard course in bell ringing! And it distracted me from the characters and story. I think there was some dialect in there, too.
Nan: I'm with you, I'm not very keen on dialect at all, it takes me right out of the story and surely that's not what authors want?
Yes, Nine Tailors was like that too with too much detail and a murder mystery set in The Lake District by another author was as well. I think that was bus timetables!
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