A Presumption of Death

by Jill Paton Walsh and Dorothy L. Sayers

Book Overview

Sixty years after Sayers began this unfinished Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane mystery, Booker Prize finalist Walsh took on the challenge of completing the novel, set in 1940 amidst the Blitz of London in World War II. Martin's Press.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 031299138X
• ISBN13: 9780312991388
• Release Date: August 2004
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 0.43 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Payton continues saga

Jill Payton has again made use of Dorothy Sayers notes and concocted a nice addition to the Whimsey tales. It has the period charm and many of the touches,(letters, riddles, misdirection and moral themes) along with the excellent prose and high standard of syntax that characterise Sayers' other work. Congratulations to Ms. Payton.

An enjoyable visit with old friends.

Those who love Dorothy Sayers should enjoy this book. Jill Paton Walsh is a good steward of Sayer's legacy, and the further adventures of Peter, Harriet, and Bunter are as satisfying as anyone has a right to expect. I sincerely hope a third Wimsey book will follow soon.

lord peter review

Great book. I loved all the lord peter books. Thanks for takeing me back to a time I wanted to learn more about. Great read great book.

Another View of Some Old Friends

I'm glad to read, in these reviews, that not every reader was so scrupulous about comparing Sayers and Paton/Walsh. I was so delighted to be returned to the locale and the characters, it didn't bother me at all that Paton/Walsh's style was different. It was as though another friend of the characters, writing about them in her own way, gave us the opportunity to visit with them once again.

A wonderful continuation of a treasured tradition

I have been avidly reading and rereading Dorothy L Sayers for for over 15 years after having been introduced to her writing by my mother just before I went off to college at Oxford. I thus approached Jill Paton Walsh's continuation of the Peter Wimsey series with a certain skepticism. In fact even after enjoying her first book "Thrones and Dominations" I tended to give all of the credit for the quality of that book to the notes Sayers had apparently left for the story. Having now finished Walsh's second book in the series, "A Presumption of Death", I have to give credit where credit is due. The book is wonderful and I really enjoyed reading it. Walsh is not Sayers and there are differences,(I think Walsh is a bit softer on people) but the original characters shine through and "A Presumption of Death" is well written with a well crafted mystery. In particular I enjoyed the way that this book, like Sayers' original mysteries, explores the moral questions of what drives a person to kill, and how society should best respond to that act, and the way the act affects all of the people connected to it, the people connected both to the victim and to the perpetrator. In addition, there is much delight to be found in the setting for this mystery. I found myself immersed in a believable English village coming to terms with the realities of being on the homefront during the early part of the Second World War.