The Nine Tailors

Rating:
Summary: Great Sayers novel even without "the gang"
Review: I'm a huge fan of the Wimsey novels and had read all of the books in the series--some twice--except for this one. I had been putting it off because 1) the subject of change-ringing sounded dull and unduly esoteric; and 2) I had heard that none of the usual characters appeared.

I must admit that I am still unclear on exactly what change-ringing is. Regardless, I loved this book, even though there was very little Bunter and no Parker, Biggs, or Vane. The writing is outstanding, and I found the mystery aspect of the novel deeply satisfying. Even though I guessed one asepct of the mystery early on (the identity of the man in the grave), the rest of it was a nice twist.

Rating:
Summary: An authoritative dramatic-reading of a difficult mystery
Review: The 1934 Dorothy L. Sayers mystery titled "The Nine Tailors" is not about the garment industry. Instead it centers on the venerable tradition of "change ringing" still practiced in England in which a given number of church bells or "tellers" are rung in every possible combination. So nine of them would have to be rung in (what we call in math class) "9 factorial" or 362,880 different combinations. You can figure out how long that would take at one peal per second.

Well the combinations do play a part in the solution of a particularly involved plot concerning jewelry stolen considerably in the past, a freshly dug grave with the wrong body in it, a flood, a snowstorm, and a villageful of really interesting characters, one of whom might be a thief, another a murderer, and so on. However, I am not reviewing the book itself but a marvelously effective complete reading of it by Lord Peter Wimsey himself, which is to say character actor Ian Carmichael who played Wimsey so well on the television series (now available on both VHS and DVD from Acorn Media). Here is the novel, complete on 6 cassettes, from Audio Partners, which is increasing their catalogue of complete mystery recordings very quickly indeed.

Of course, Carmichael is the perfect Wimsey; but he is also very good at every other voice needed to make this an excellent reading. Some books-on-tape readers merely use their own voices throughout; and success depends on how interesting and appropriate that single voice is. Like David Suchet on the companion Poirot readings, Carmichael makes his reading into a full dramatization.

Highly recommended for those who love a really intricate mystery read by a terrific actor.

Rating:
Summary: Well-Written, But Not Very Mysterious
Review: The Nine Tailors is a well-written story; unfortunately the crafting of the mystery has not held up over the years. Many of Sayers' plot devices have become routine, if not clichéd, so it's little wonder modern readers leap to conclusions ahead of Lord Peter Wimsey.

The plot revolves around a rural community in England and certain misdeeds past and present. Central to the community is its church, and it is here that Lord Peter spends most of his time, either in the Rectory, the cemetery, or the church building itself.

The story is told through the metaphor of "change ringing." If you know nothing of this English tradition it is possible to soldier through - the text does provide some clues - but it's rough going. A website with some particularly helpful information is www.nagcr.org/pamphlet.html. An online Java application that enables you to ring your own bells is www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/kvdoel/bells/bells.html. Googling for "change ringing" will provide additional examples, but these two cover many of the points Sayers includes in the novel.

While the mystery is not the most challenging (outside of a cryptogram, which is almost as unsolvable as the code in Have His Carcase), this is still an extremely good novel. Sayers' small church characters are written spot on, and her inclusion of church and governmental politics feels authentic. Other Lord Peter novels have held up better over time; that this one hasn't serves as a testimony to the effect Dorothy Sayers has had on the mystery writers that came after her. I enjoyed this book and heartily recommend it with the minor caveats listed above.

Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: This novel, Dorothy L. Sayers' best-known, is, without doubt, one of her best-if not the best. Sayers takes the customary English village, and makes something new of it, by setting it in the Fen country, and by giving to it a church, which, as the well-drawn rector describes, "East Anglia is famous for the size and splendour of its parish churches. Still, we flatter ourselves we are almost unique, even in this part of the world." The church services show great feeling and power, and neatly tie in with the theme of religion. The church possesses bells, the book being best-known for the bell-ringing, described in such powerfully beautiful descriptions as:

"Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvres of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells-little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul."

The bells are also eerily threatening-"Bells are like cats and mirrors-they're always queer, and it doesn't do to think too much about them."-which is fitting, as the plot hinges on bells: both an ingenious cryptogram (again, to quote the rector, "I should never have thought of the possibility that one might make a cipher out of change-ringing. Most ingenious."), and an ingenious murder method.

The whodunit aspect of the story is not neglected; for once, it is a genuine problem. The body is buried in a grave, and involves a complicated problem of identity, and an unknown method. The victim, as Wimsey describes, is "a perfect nuisance, dead or alive, and whoever killed him was a public benefactor. I wish I'd killed him myself." Wimsey is engaging here, and not the parody of Bertie Wooster he sometimes is-he is a human being, without being the equally obnoxious creature found in Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon. The detection is excellent, and, as was to be the trend in nearly every detective story following (especially Nicholas Blake's), the detective "felt depressed. So far as he could see, his interference had done no good to anybody and only made extra trouble. It was a thousand pities that the body of Deacon had ever come to light at all. Nobody wanted it." These tie in with the burden of guilt and innocence, redemption and repentance.

Finally, the book comes to its powerful climax in a flooded village, "with an aching and intolerable melancholy, like the noise of the bells of a drowned city pushing up through the overwhelming sea."

This is not a detective story-this is, if anything, a novel.

Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the finest of Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.
Review: Unlike some of her Lord Peter mysteries, this novel can be read by itself, and it is a delight. About a murder done in an old church in the English countryside, you will learn more about the ringing of church bells than you thought possible. Lord Peter is at the top of his form, literate, intelligent, and a thinker beyond being just a mystery novel detective. None of the characters are one or two dimensional, and each of them is developed fully and delightfully. When it comes to mystery fiction, you can't do much better than Sayers...which may be one reason her novels appeared on PBS' MASTERPIECE THEATRE rather than MYSTERY! They are indeed, masterpieces