Reviews - Dorothy L. Sayers, Sarah Waters

The Complete Lord Peter Short Stories (Dorothy L. Sayers)

I loved these short stories. All of them were clever, though some were more remarkable than others. Peter's faking of his own death for two whole years to get a group of criminals was a weird touch, though I enjoyed the story.

My favourites were the last two -- yay, children! And especially, yay Cuthbert! I loved the last line of the last story best of all: "Bunter, find Master Bredon's snake for him and return it carefully to the furnace-room. It answers to the name of Cuthbert."

One thing I did wish for was Bunter's reactions to Peter's sons. That would have been wonderful.

Anyway, clever and entertaining, and surprisingly easy to read. I spent an hour with them this evening that felt like fifteen minutes.

Thrones, Dominations (Dorothy L. Sayers & Jill Paton Walsh)

I was reluctant to read this, since it wasn't all Sayers' work. I'm not madly in love, but it was fun enough, and very easy to read. Bunter having a happy ending of his own is somewhat out of the blue, since you'd think he was married to his job, but the solution they come up with is quite nice.

All the scenes between Harriet and Peter got a bit much. A little goes a long way with them: having read Busman's Honeymoon, I'd had my fill of love scenes for a while.

I probably wouldn't have read it if we hadn't already owned a copy, but it's not terrible.

A Presumption of Death (Dorothy L. Sayers & Jill Paton Walsh)

Even less of a Sayers novel than Thrones, Dominations, as far as I can tell, so it's really basically official fanfiction. Looking at it in that light, it's pretty good: some of it is quite Sayers-ish, and Harriet and Peter's relationship isn't quite so overdone as in the other book. Gets a nice atmosphere of wartime Britain, and it's all worked out quite neatly. I love the hints at the development of Peter's brother, actually.

It's entertaining for what it is, and very easy and quick to read. If you're looking for an evening's brain candy, you could do worse.

The Little Stranger (Sarah Waters)

The Little Stranger is interesting to read, but very slow. The narrator is very rational, so the supernatural aspects are played down and made very ambiguous -- part of the fear of it is the fear of going mad, as well as the fear of the unknown. Most of the time, though, it's too long-winded to be really creepy, for me: there are some events that have an anxious creepy urgency about them, but the tension is defused in the details of a pragmatic doctor's life. The creep factor is greater when he effaces himself in the narration and just describes what's going on.

The slow and awkward build of Farraday's relationship with Caroline was interesting, her moves toward him and away. They read quite realistically, and so did his feelings for her. Their relationship is well written, and so nothing seems to come as a surprise.

The descriptions of the setting are wonderful. For a while the level of detail is entrancing because it's so vivid, though in the end it becomes a little too much.

Interesting to read, but not precisely gripping.