“Lord Peter Whimsey and His Circle” is the subtitle of Blue Blood on the Trail, a study by Bernard Palmer, O.B.E., specialist in church history.
Wimsey fans will find this work to be a light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek attempt to construct an account of Lord Peter, his relatives and associates, based on evidence provided in the dozen novels and twenty short stories authored by Dorothy L. Sayers. Included are synopses of the cases with much critical information.
Lord Peter Wimsey, the hero of a dozen novels and over twenty short
stories by Dorothy L. Sayers, has attracted, in the eighty years since he made
his first appearance in Whose Body?, a large and devoted body of readers.
Those Wimsey fans anxious to learn more about him will welcome this
light-hearted, tongue-in-cheek attempt to construct a straightforward, 'factual'
account of Lord Peter, his relatives and his associates based almost entirely on
the evidence provided by Miss Sayers in her writings about them.
The second half of the book contains synopses of the recorded Wimsey cases, with information of particular interest (including critical reactions) about each; an alphabetical list of characters, with a relevant Sayers quotation appended to each; and a mini-biography of Miss Sayers herself.
Dorothy L. Sayers was a leading British writer in the so-called Golden Age of the detective story in the nineteen-twenties and thirties. She is still very much read today. All her Wimsey books remain in print, and television versions of many of these are available on video.
Dr. Bernard Palmer, OBE, spent all his working career on the staff of the
Church Times, the Church of England's leading weekly newspaper, of which he
was editor from 1968 to 1989. In his retirement he has written a number of books
on byways of church history, beginning with a history of his paper and including
a study of British prime ministers as bishop-makers.
His interest in Lord Peter Wimsey dates back to his boyhood — and was rekindled by his membership in the Dorothy L. Sayers Society. A re-reading of all the Wimsey books inspired him to write Blue Blood on the Trail.
Handsome, four-colour,
jacketed case-bound edition. Hard Cover 208 pp.
ISBN 1-55246-476-8 @ $36.00
