Rating: 
Summary: Delightfully clever
Review: Bright, funny, brooding, witty, playful and sinister. A relentless page turner with Lord Peter Wimsey as cool, complicated and surprising as ever (the cricket game is an absolute classic). A teaser mention of Harriett as she doesn't make an appearance in this book. There is a slight lull around chapter 10 but another cracking read regardless!!
Rating:
Summary: Delightfully clever
Review: Bright, funny, brooding, witty, playful and sinister. A relentless page turner with Lord Peter Wimsey as cool, complicated and surprising as ever (the cricket game is an absolute classic). A teaser mention of Harriett as she doesn't make an appearance in this book. There is a slight lull around chapter 10 but another cracking read regardless!!
Rating: 
Summary: Best read as light entertainment.
Review: Dorothy L Sayers' detective fiction output was not large. From the total of eleven novels, two at least have never been regarded as highly by critics and readers as have the others. "Murder Must Advertise" is one of them. Re-reading it recently, I decided that most of its weaknesses are less apparent if it is treated as a light entertainment. Why should I expect the scholarly Miss Sayers to always provide verisimilitude, evidence of thorough research and scientific investigation? It soon becomes clear, in this book, that the pukka, debonair Lord Peter Wimsey is highly unlikely to be doing a stint as an advertising copywriter, that he would be fool enough to dive from a great height into a fountain, and that a murder such as the one he is investigating could ever be committed. Deciding not to take these things seriously, I enjoyed my time with the book, especially the description of Lord Peter Wimsey winning the cricket match for his advertising agency. It became impossible, however, at the end to regard the book as light entertainment. The tone changes. Miss Sayers is forced to meet the problem of dispensing justice to the killer, once identified. Her solution is heavy-handed. Ah! well, many whodunits have disappointing endings. Approach this one as I have suggested, and you'll enjoy most of it. Don't expect Harriet Vane to feature, however. Dorothy L Sayers never mentions her by name, only referring to the woman in Lord Peter's life who is being "deliberately excluded from these pages".
Rating:
Summary: Best read as a light entertainment.
Review: Dorothy L Sayers' detective fiction output was not large. From the total of eleven novels, two at least have never been regarded as highly by critics and readers as have the others. "Murder Must Advertise" is one of them. Re-reading it recently, I decided that most of its weaknesses are less apparent if it is treated as a light entertainment. Why should I expect the scholarly Miss Sayers to always provide verisimilitude, evidence of thorough research and scientific investigation? It soon becomes clear, in this book, that the pukka, debonair Lord Peter Wimsey is highly unlikely to be doing a stint as an advertising copywriter, that he would be fool enough to dive from a great height into a fountain, and that a murder such as the one he is investigating could ever be committed. Deciding not to take these things seriously, I enjoyed my time with the book, especially the description of Lord Peter Wimsey winning the cricket match for his advertising agency. It became impossible, however, at the end to regard the book as light entertainment. The tone changes. Miss Sayers is forced to meet the problem of dispensing justice to the killer, once identified. Her solution is heavy-handed. Ah! well, many whodunits have disappointing endings. Approach this one as I have suggested, and you'll enjoy most of it. Don't expect Harriet Vane to feature, however. Dorothy L Sayers never mentions her by name, only referring to the woman in Lord Peter's life who is being "deliberately excluded from these pages".
Rating:
Summary: Lord Peter Wimsey's at his best in "Murder Must Advertise"
Review: I enjoyed Murder Must Advertise the most out of all the Dorothy Sayers/Lord Peter Wimsey books, but that is not to say that it is her best. Ms. Sayers herself considered Murder Must Advertise as a lightweight book, written on the side while taking a break from some of her more complex novels. Three quarters of a century later, it seems that what she considered her most brilliant work and what actually stood the test of time are two different things. I have never been able to get through "Nine Tailors", I found it excrutiatingly boring, and although I finished "The Five Red Herrings", I am sad to say that quite a bit of the intricate plot went over my head. I am not complimenting myself by saying so, since both these books were, I am sure, brilliant. Perhaps I can blame it on the generation gap? (I wish).
But "Murder Must Advertise" is still as funny and as relevant today as it was when it was first published. Ms. Sayers drew on her own experience working in an ad agency, and it shows. (Writing copy was what she did for a living, writing novels was simply not as lucrative in those times as it is today). The characters that populate the ad agency are so real, you can almost feel that they will get up out of the book and walk around. I also loved the character developement of Lord Peter, because to develope from his previous books he sure did do. In "Murder Must Advertise", he shows us a different side to himself than is apparent in the first few books, and I think Dorothy Sayers saw him differently as well. What's interesting in the Lord Peter Whimsey books is that Lord Peter comes across differently in each novel, there is real and true character development. Unlike almost any other series novelists I can think of, where if you pick up the first book and you pick up the last book you will find the same person; if you will pick up "Who's Body" and "Busman's Honeymoon" you will actually meet two different people. (Lord Peter becomes even more developed in "Gaudy Night" and "Busman's Honeymoon").
"Murder Must Advertise" is well-crafted and funny, with a blend of humor and melodrama that complement each other extremely well, in my opinion. Even the ending, which many reviewers have stated was too dark, I found it be just right - this is a murder mystery after all, and murderers must get punished. Although the story is light-hearted and funny, every now and then we see a grim side to Lord Peter as he keeps reminding himself, and the reader, why he is really there - and its not for fun. There is an undercurrent of seriousness throughout the book, which finally breaks through in the "dark" ending. But make no mistake, the ending does not come out of nowhere, if you read the book carefully, you will see that it was there all along.
Was this Dorothy Sayers best? She herself said not, and its hard to argue with an author, especially a dead one. Did I enjoy this book the most? Yes I did, with "Busman's Honeymoon coming in a very close second (another semi-comedy). As far as relevance to today's mindset, I think this book has stood the test of time very well.
I don't think this should be your first Lord Peter book, however. I think you have to read a "stuffy" Lord Peter book first, to better appreciate this novel.
Rating:
Summary: Bravo! Knock-out Mystery!
Review: I must preface this review by confessing a bias - I'm a huge fan of Dorothy Sayers and consider it a tragedy that she did not write more detective fiction. This is definitely one of the strongest entries in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, both for mystery and entertainment value. An interesting tactic used by Sayers is to point in the direction of the culprit about three-fourths of the way through the book and then lead the reader through the detection process that actually leads to his/her unmasking. We saw this used in "Unnatural Death", also in "Whose Body?" Surprisingly, the resulting lack of suspense at the end does not deter from the mystery at all as it is fascinating to see the patient unraveling of clues and pulling together of threads that lead to evidence against a killer. It is also a better reflection of what usually happens in reality, as opposed to a lot of detective fiction where the most unlikely person did it! While we all find whodunits interesting, the reality is that the police and private eyes are usually smart enough to figure out the most likely candidate fairly early and thus narrow their investigations. In this book, the fun is added to by the setting in an ad agency. Sayers had worked in an ad agency at some point in her career and you can see that she really knows her stuff. The interplay between the various characters is very funny and surprisingly not dated in feel, considering the book was written 70 odd years ago! I found the cricket match scene to be the most fascinating part as well the sense the reader gets that with every page, the hangman's noose is slowly closing around the killer. Richly detailed and very descriptive, this is a book you'll want to go back and re-read many times - there will always be something fresh to see!
Rating:
Summary: The Two Sides of Lord Peter Wimsey
Review: Lord Peter has the rare and highly enjoyable (for himself and the reader) opportunity to play a dual role in this book: himself and his "cousin," Death Bredon. This plot device would be perfected decades later when Peter Brady simultaneously kept dates with two girls, but Ms. Sayers acquits herself admirably in this novel. An author who frequently made her novels deliver more than just a solid whodunit, Sayers gives the reader a fly-on-the-wall view of an advertising agency in this book. Having worked on the production side of several publications I can verify that her descriptions are spot on. Sayers also includes a couple editorial asides (in the guise of internal soliloquies) about rampant consumerism and middle-class aspirations to luxury and first class footwear. They're as true today as they were in 1930's (and probably the 17- and 1830's as well). And if you hated the idea of The Beatles' music being used to hawk cars, you can imagine how consumers of a previous age felt to see the works of Shakespeare or Tennyson used to promote nerve powder. This is all to say that this novel's verisimilitude has weathered the years exceedingly well. The central mystery - who slew Victor Dean - gets lost occasionally in the goings-on at the ad agency, but Wimsey, er Bredon, er whoever, is always at work, picking up the odd clue here and there as he goes. Even when the depth of the crime grows - to multiple murders and drug trafficking - Sayers keeps bringing it back to Dean's murder. By the end of the cricket match I found myself floored that I almost understood the game, but also by the way Sayers expertly wove in two crucial revelations about the mystery. I was satisfied with the story's conclusion. At first the ending seemed cold-blooded and -hearted, but upon reflection I realized that the resolution was well forshadowed - if Wimsey's middle name were Steve it'd be another matter, perhaps. Although we'd spent most of the book with the impish, playful side of Lord Peter, there's another side to his character which values honor most and is not above going beyond the law to preserve it. If you're not a Dorothy Sayers fan you should probably get to know her detective in an earlier work like Strong Poison first. Then, once you're comfortable with his character, give this novel a read. If you are a Sayers fan, why aren't you reading this book already? 9 out of 10 readers agree, this is a five-star mystery.
Rating:
Summary: Dorothy Sayers' Most Entertaining Mystery
Review: Murder Must Advertise is Dorothy Sayers at her best. This storet in a London advertising agency, is a hoot to read - especially if you've ever had the misfortune to churn out ad copy for a living. Some people would tell you to start at the beginning of the Peter Whimsey series, but I say start here. This is vintage Sayers.
Rating:
Summary: after the unpleasantness of bellona club
Review: ONe would think that such a rather dull and uninteresting subject as advertising could be a vehicle for the collusion of big business and other big brother types in the murder of innocent lives. What sort of skill Ms Sayers must have had in being so creative and yet it seems to me that in this generation of no-nothings our senses and thoughts are being "tweaked" by the underlying humour of Ms Sayers and she must be smiling secretly (smothering it of course, as Lord Peter has done so many times in his short career here on earth) that her very ideas are now being extolled and maybe even carried out in the press and now, lo, in the internet. Kudos to Ms Sayers, I still love Lord Peter Wimsey and hope that his nose forever twitches! Adieu, Mary
Rating:
Summary: Advertisement Reads:
Review: SHOCKINGLY GOOD TALE! I enjoyed this Wimsey novel to its fullest, with its quirky and witty humor. The little references to other literary characters and tales is a delight for those who know them, and the witticisms ae absolutely smashing! You just can't put it down! Wimsey is at his peak, making a spectacular mark in the mystery genre. The cricket match has to be one of my favorite parts in the entire book--but of course, I cannot spoil the fun and tell you what happens, now, can I? I shall have to leave it all up to you to decide. I simply loved this one by Sayers; it sparkles of wit and creative writing. Her different perspectives of Wimsey from three different people's POVs is just too entertaining! You'll love this book from beginning to end!
|
