Striding Folly (Mystery Masters Series)

Rating:
Summary: Excellent performance of a mixed bag of stories
Review: I'm a fan of Dorothy Sayers and especially love her Lord Peter Wimsey stories, and so it's always nice to find a new way to enjoy them. Ian Carmichael richly deserves the raves he has received for his performance here. His narrative was quite easy to listen to, and the voices he gave the characters seemed appropriate and not exaggerated or affected. He brought some beloved characters to aural life, and I could have listened for a lot longer than the relatively brief length of this pair of CDs.

If there's a drawback here, it's the actual stories that were chosen for this set. Without giving anything away (for the sake of mystery-lovers who may not be familiar with the outcome of the mysteries here), I'll note that I've always found "Striding Folly" and "The Haunted Policeman" among the more unsatisfying Wimsey stories. The first one seems to end well short of a proper finish, while the second, told mostly through a policeman's recollections to Lord Peter, violates the old writers' rule about "show them, don't tell them." These weaknesses are somewhat balanced out, however, by merits and pure charm of "Talboys," which I understand was Sayers' final Lord Peter story. Like the novel "Busman's Honeymoon," this story gives the reader a close look at his lordship's private life as well as his mystery-solving skills. Seeing him amid his family this way is a wonderful final image for this popular sleuth.


Rating:
Summary: The final adventures of Lord Peter
Review: This unabridged audio edition is read by Ian Carmichael, who portrayed Lord Peter in quite a few BBC TV adaptations in the 1970s, such as _The Nine Tailors_, although not _Strong Poison_ or the other stories of Lord Peter's courtship of Harriet Vane, which were portrayed on TV by Edward Petherbridge. Both men are excellent narrators, in any case, with a fine command of accents, so any reading by either of them is good. These 3 stories otherwise appear only in the omnibus collection of all the Wimsey stories, _Lord Peter_.

"Striding Folly" - When Mr. Creech bought the Striding property on the death of the old squire, only Mr. Mellilow really accepted him - believing that Creech meant well despite his unfortunate manner, and happy that Creech could give him a weekly game of chess. Then Creech proposed to sell much of Striding to the electric company and bring in development -"which, to Mr. Mellilow, was another name for the Devil." Soon after breaking the news to Mellilow, Creech failed to turn up for their game - but a stranger did, leaving him with an alibi for the murder of Creech that no one would believe, except that friend of the Chief Constable's...

"The Haunted Policeman" - Occurs after _Thrones, Dominations_, and opens just as Lord Peter is being presented with his first-born son, as yet unnamed in this story. Poor old Peter has had the fright of his life, although Harriet was never in any danger, so he's too keyed up to sleep, and is standing on his own front doorstep smoking at 3 in the morning when a young constable, looking very distressed, passes by.

"Talboys" - The last Lord Peter story, with a 'crime' suitable to the small-town setting. The boy born in the previous story, Bredon (one of Peter's middle names), opens the story with a confession: he just took some of the peaches one of the neighbours was preparing to show. (He thought he'd better confess quick before more serious retribution caught up with him, but the neighbour wasn't much upset). A very tiresome spinster who was wished on the household as a guest by the Duchess takes the opportunity to tell Peter and Harriet how they're raising their 3 young sons in the wrong way, after watching Peter handle the incident. Bredon has sense enough not to value her championship - for one thing, in the Wimsey household, when a kid is punished that's the end of the matter.

Soon afterward, when the owner of the peaches drops by a second time to report that *all* of them have now been stolen off his tree, the Wimseys take Bredon's word that he didn't do it (although the spinster assumes he's lying). Peter takes on the investigation not out of any doubt, but because the peach-owner is an old friend and it's an interesting little problem that's fallen into his lap.