Skip to main content

Whose Body, concluded

Quite a complicated plot.  The murderer is a surgeon and scientist, Dr. Julian Freke.  He believes that conscience is utter nonsense.  He murders Reuben Levy because Levy bested him in love years earlier, but also to prove his point about conscience. Wimsey somehow sees the whole picture and solves the crime.  I'm not sure I get it yet.  It goes something like this:  Freke, a dissector of bodies for his occupation, comes upon a vagrant who looks something like Levy.  This man dies of a broken neck.  Freke then kills Levy by breaking his neck with a poker.  Freke substitutes Levy for the vagrant.  A team of dissectors work on him and then bury him.  Great . . . except Freke has an extra body . . . the vagrant.  Here's where it gets interesting.  Rather than just disposing of the body somehow, Freke makes the man look as much like Levy as possible, transports it across a rooftop, and deposits it in the bathtub of a neighbor.  This causes the police no end of confusion, which I guess is Freke's point.  Wimsey figures it out, though.

Some nice sardonic English humor  throughout. I'll probably read another Sayers book some day, but no rush.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin . . . finished

 Follows Sadie and Sam (Mazer) from childhood to mid-thirties when both are feeling old and a bit out of it in the gaming world.  Characters are well-rounded, develop throughout the novel in interesting way.  Plot is involved but sensible.  Not a single, "Oh, come on!" moment.  The book could have been faster paced. Odd, since the main topic is video games which are not for their speed of engagement and Gabrielle Zevin clearly knows her video games. Recommended by Michael Connelly in an interview.  He also has Bosch pick up the book in his novel, Resurrection Walk, as Bosch tails a possible witness to a crime as she moves through a bookstore. Sadie and Sam do not get together at the end, which is good.   Marx killed by homophobic nutcase who really wants to kill Sam, but Sam isn't there. Marx is father of Sadie's child. 
Post a Comment
Read more

The Secret, Book and Scone Society

Cozy mystery with a "women are superior creatures" underpinning. The four women have all had their struggles, which we will learn about one-by-one, but they all remain/emerge wiser, kinder, smarter, etc. than the men in the novel, most of whom are corrupt, narrow-minded, unfeeling and potentially violent. (Nora's encounter with the paramedic-hunk is the exception, though it occurs to me that he may be the murderer.) Even Estelle, who uses sex to get what she wants, is portrayed positively.  The men are comically manipulated by her curves.  In one scene, she goes skinny-dipping with a married man but is rescued by her buddies before she actually has sex with the guy. Nora, our main character, is told by her female friends that she is beautiful despite her scars. No male says this to Nora because males are just too crass to see beyond surface beauty.  I hope I'm wrong and the book is more nuanced. If not, then this author is a one-and-done writer for me.
Post a Comment
Read more