14 January, 2002
Clouds of Witness
Dorothy L. Sayers
1927
279 pp (PB)
I had a few problems with Sayers' Strong Poison, and I hypothesised that one of underlying reasons might be that it's the 5th book in a series, and perhaps I should have started with an earlier book. To test that theory, I decided to read Clouds of Witness, which is the second book in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. (The local bookstore didn't have the first book.)
The results of the experiment are mixed: having read Clouds of Witness, some of the things which confused me about Peter Wimsey in Strong Poison make more sense. However, Strong Poison does come up short in comparison to its predecessor, and I stand by my opinion that it's really not that great a book, although it is fairly amusing.
But anyway, on to Clouds of Witness. In this novel, Dennis Cathcart-- the fiance of Peter's sister Mary-- is found shot to death, and their brother Gerald, Duke of Denver (not the Mile-High City), is arrested on suspicion of murder. Of course, it falls to the family detective to clear him.
The character of Peter Wimsey is developed very well over the course of Clouds. At first, he seemed the same multiple-personality disorder cross between Miss Marple and Bertie Wooster which perplexed me so much in Strong Poison. But as the book goes on, he's revealed to be a much more interesting and sympathetic person. He's somebody of whom society expects nothing more than Wooster-esque dilettantism, but who's actually very intelligent and dissatisfied with the role society has laid out for the second son of a duke. So, he takes on intellectual hobbies like book-collecting and crime-solving. He's rather a misfit in his own social set, but being a noble is so deeply ingrained in his personality that he isn't completely at ease among "normal" people, either. Plus, he can be a really snarky bastard, which is something I always appreciate.
Very little of this was evident in Strong Poison. I suspect that Sayers was lazy and assumed that readers of that book would have read the previous books in the series, and thus didn't make a big effort to sketch out Peter's character for new readers. On one hand, that's an understandable approach for the author of a popular series to take, but on the other, it's still preferable for each book in a series to be able to stand on its own. For example, I contend that one could pick up any novel in Lois Bujold's "Vorkosigan" series, without having read any of the others, and enjoy it. (This is based on the fact that just about everybody I know who likes that series started it with a different book.)
The plot of Clouds of Witness is pretty good. The majority of the book follows Wimsey and his police-inspector friend Parker as they investigate the killing. I found myself figuring things out around the same time as the detectives, at least up until the very end, so the mystery is neither too simple, or unfair.
The book did have a slight problem with pacing. The engaging mystery investigation is bracketed by a couple of relatively dull transcripts of courtroom scenes, and the uncovering of the final key piece of evidence is only shown as a flashback. But, that's only about 30 pages out of 279, so let's not quibble.
The rest contains specific plot spoilers for Clouds of Witness:
I'm afraid that one thing I dislike about these books is inherent in the setting: all these rich, upper-crust Brits really piss me off! The things they get away with! For example, Mary Wimsey's utterly guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice: she lied to investigators and on the witness stand to protect her boyfriend, who she suspected of having killed her fiance. I don't doubt that a lower-class person who did a similar thing would have been treated quite differently from Mary, who not only gets off scott-free, her behavior is lauded before the House of Lords. As another example, during the trial, the appearance of a particularly elusive witness is attributed to "Parker's diligence." While Parker is a diligent detective, one can't help but suspect that he might not have been quite so diligent if the accused had not been a) a Duke, and b) the brother of his friend. Money and clout are always good.
Anyway, it's not like I'm expecting social justice in a lightweight novel set amongst the early-twentieth-century English nobility. And Sayers isn't completely enamoured of that set; her portrayal of the nobility is fairly satirical, although it's rather friendly satire that doesn't bite particularly deep. The whole attitude is just rather noticeable to somebody with a middle-class American upbringing, like myself.
One aspect of the plot which I didn't like in the least was the facile conclusion of the Duke-Mrs. Grimethorpe-Mr. Grimethorpe subplot. The formerly reluctant mistress decides to risk her life to provide the Duke with an alibi, which turns out to be unnecessary, and the murderous abusive husband gets run over by a taxi while trying to kill Duke Gerald, all without a hint of the lurking scandal coming to light. It was just way too easy.
Anyway, in spite of the small flaws, I really did enjoy this book, and I'll certainly read more of the series in the future. Kate assures me that the best books in the series are later ones: Gaudy Night,Murder Must Advertise, and The Nine Tailors.