'In search of Columbus' by Hunter Davies.'Wise Children' - the play by Emma Rice.

' When you flatly deny everything a person says it does sound like contradiction to the uninitiated.' (C 9) This is more or less the moment when the key piece of evidence is read out at Denver's trial.

Jane Smiley in 13 ways of looking at a novel says that the climax should come at the 90% mark.

But in another few pages Lord Peter has solved the mystery. At this point we are left with no suspects.

Another key moment, a key alibi, arrives almost exactly at the 75% mark.

Lord Peter is shot at almost exactly the 50% part this is the key turning point of the book.

Jane Smiley in 13 ways of looking at a novel states that a novel's thesis must be set out in the first 10%.

The first chapter, which sets out the initiating murder, takes up the first 10% of the book.

He tells Lord |Peter at one point: ' There are many difficulties inherent in a teleological view of creation.' (C 3)

Even Mr Parker, educated at Barrow-in-Furness grammar school, knows theology.

The three page letter written in French is translated, fortunately!

There are lots of words in French, without translation, which regular readers of my blog know is one of my pet hates.

One of the keys which helps Lord Peter solve the crime is that the victim had, amongst his bedroom reading, a copy of Manon Lescaut, a book I had not read at the time of reading this.

One of the difficulties with DLS is that she was so very clever and tended to expect knowledge in others:

The phrase ' broad awake' is used it is nowadays more normally 'wide awake' (C 1).

There is a reference to the ' exhilarating properties' of ' Indian hemp': cannabis was banned in the UK in 1928 (C 4).There is a radio forecast broadcast on '2LO' the earliest callsign of the BBC (C 15).Wimsey undertakes a dangerous flight across the Atlantic in chapter 15 only seven years after Alcock and Brown's first non-stop transatlantic flight and one year before Lindbergh's solo triumph.It was written and set in 1926 and contains some delightful pointers to those far-off days: Wimsey is assisted in his investigation by Mr Parker from Scotland Yard who becomes increasingly infatuated with Lady Mary.Ī classic murder mystery full of excitement (Wimsey gets shot at one stage the trial of the Duke is in the House of Lords). Wimsey returns from holidaying in Corsica to discover that his brother the Duke of Denver has been arrested on suspicion of murdering a house guest who had been engaged to Wimsey's sister Lady Mary. The second murder mystery featuring aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey a sequel to Whose Body.

Clouds of witness dorothy sayers