Book review - Strong Poison by Dorothy Sayers

October 30, 2007 – 9:34 pm

Dorothy L Sayers - Strong Poison

Harriet Vane, a renowned author of crime fiction, is languishing in
prison
for the murder by poison of her ex-lover. Lord Peter Wimsey is
convinced
that she had nothing to do with the murder. However, initial
investigation
shows that the odds are stacked against Harriet. Can Wimsey, and his
sidekicks - Bunter, his valet, and Miss Climpson and Miss Murchison,
his
ladies that detect, prove both that Harriet didn’t do it and who the
guilty
party is? Or is Wimsey’s judgement clouded by his love for Harriet?

Dorothy L Sayers, as an author, is up there with Agatha Christie,
Margery
Allingham and Ngaio Marsh as one of the Queens of Crime. She is best
known
for her leading character, Lord Peter Wimsey. Wimsey is a wealthy
member of
the nobility who likes to dabble in crime. I personally find him quite
a
dull character. He is very much the thinking detective, leaving the on
the
ground detective work to his sidekicks and members of the police force,
and
as such, almost disappears into the background at times in this book. I
felt
that he could have been substituted by almost any fictional detective
and
the impact on the story would have been minimal. I did like the
relationship
he has with Harriet though. Knowing how the relationship later develops
(in
later books), I was interested to find out how they met.

The strength of this book undeniably lies in its plot. At the
beginning, it
seems that Harriet’s fate is sealed, but slowly, information is dripped
out
to the reader to make them question her guilt. And each time that I
thought
I might have worked it out, something would come along to make me doubt
myself. This really kept me on tenterhooks throughout the course of the
book; to the extent that I found it hard to put down.

The language and the setting for the novel seem old-fashioned and this
may
put some people off. For example, it may be hard for younger readers to
sympathise with Harriet’s predicament, which was shocking for its time,
because the meaning has been lost over the course of years. I
personally
love crime fiction set in the early twentieth century. Forensic science
techniques are obviously in their infancy, which means that the author
was
forced to create a really good story rather than blind us with science.

You can buy this book for £5.49 delivery is free - Play.com

by sunmeilan