Published by New English Library; originally 1928; this edition 1974
ISBN 4500-1630-7
Book 4 in the Peter Wimsey series
Genre: crime
Keywords: Peter Wimsey; family feud, issues of a will, inheritance, post-traumatic syndrome, England after first World War, women’s place in society, autopsy, digitalis,
Grade: 5/5
Will I read more books in the series: absolutely.
I do love these books, although it seems that the author does not approve of fancy popular medical doctors (see ‘Whose Body?’).
Every year since the end of 1WW on Armistice Day Peter Wimsey has joined Colonel Marchbanks for a dinner to remember his son who was killed in the last hours of the war. This year the dinner takes place at the Bellona Club. The members of this club are a lot if army officers who have mental scars after having seen too much death and destruction, further more many of them had been exposed to mustard gas which caused long term side affects and disability. Many of the soldiers described in the book also had post-traumatic syndrome, but it was not called so then. The Bellona Club is a place where people spend time away from home or they stay they. In the beginning of the book, it is described how the old people sit in their usual chairs and become part of the furniture, so nobody will realize they have died. That is exactly what happened: general Arthur Fentiman, for him ‘the war’ had been the Crimea war, but his sons Captain George and Major Robert had been in the 1WW. Their family had been well off but times have changed and the money is scarce.
In the Fentiman family a sister to the old general had caused a scandal when she eloped and married against her parents’ wishes, causing a break and no connection for decades. She had done well; had a loving husband, he became rich and a Sir and his wife Lady Dormer.
Arthur Fentiman had a call from his sister’s estate that she was sick and dying, if he would like to see her, he should come immediately and that he did. She told him that in her will she would give her considerable fortune to him. If he should die first, her remote niece would get the money. Lady Dormer died at 10:30 the next morning, in the afternoon in the Bellona Club General Fentiman is found dead for a while. The Doctor estimate he died at 10 o’clock.
Ten days later Peter Wimsey is approached by the lawyer for the Fentiman family if he could find a more precise estimate of the time of death. Peter is reluctant to undertake this investigation and suggest they get an agreement to split the inheritance. The niece does not want that.
The last book I reviewed here was Patricia Cornwell: Autopsy, I must say in this book the information on autopsy and how to determine time of death based on stomach content, rigor mortis, teach you a lot more than Cornwell’s book and I was impressed about the description of the effects of digitalis on the heart; well done, Dorothy! And that was almost a century ago.
We are introduced to post-war England of the upper-classes, the hardships, the changes in society.
How the old school look at the place of women:
Page 58: I suppose she thinks if she can’t be a success as a woman, she’ll be a half-baked intellectual. No wonder a man can’t get a decent job these days, with these hard-mouthed, cigarette-smoking females all over the place, pretending they’re geniuses and business women.
In the old days, heaps of unmarried women were companions, and let me tell you they had a better time than they have now, with all the jazzing and short skirts and pretending to have careers. The modern girl hasn’t a scrap of decent feeling or sentiment about her.
Page 126: Aristotle says, that one should always prefer the probable impossible to the improbable possible -that is the reason Peter suspected murder because what is the chances that two siblings die within a few hours?
I think this is a really good plot, that is nicely revealed, entertaining. I believe in this book Peter is babbling a lot less than in the first three books, which I miss because I find it very funny and made me laugh out aloud.
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