Unnatural Death (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Book 3) Kindle Edition

Dorothy Sayers's Lord Peter Wimsey novels are an excellent example of Golden-Age-Detective fiction. Lord Peter is a young aristocrat who enjoys collecting rare books, drinking fine liquor, and solving murder mysteries. His valet, Bunter, and a detective from Scotland Yard, Parker, aid him in his sleuthing.UNNATURAL DEATH is a solid entry in this excellent series. Lord Peter seems to be confronted by the perfect crime, murder that looks just like natural death and leaves no traces.Sayers is an excellent author. Her prose is full of wit, charm, and social commentary. Readers interested in the years between the wars will enjoy her ideas. This book also has some nice scenes in which Peter and others engage in some soul searching and questioning of the conscience. How much is justice really worth? I highly recommend the book.I have a few thoughts on this Kindle edition by Open Road. This edition is very well done, and it includes an active table of contents that links to each of the twenty-three chapters. Pressing forward and backward on the five-way controller will bring you to the ToC, Part One, Part Two, Part Three, and the appendices. This edition has a biography of Dorothy Sayers in an appendix, which includes photographs. The novel also has a genealogy of the victim's family in an appendix, which is unfortunately unreadable in this kindle edition (both on e-ink Kindle and iPad). I was a little disappointed to find a handful of typos in the text. It's much cleaner than the average free ebook you get from Amazon, but for almost $8, I expected the text to be of the same quality as a printed copy.

So I have got accustomed to the style of the writer and the way the protagonist speaks. This book starts out slowly with to me actually some confusion as to what has occurred or being investigated.The book picks up nicely in the second act and builds to an exciting crescendo in the third. I believe it is better than the first book. The characters are well-fleshed out and the details of the crime are believable.

Dorothy Sayers does not disappoint! Great characters and interesting twists in relationships. Going to read as much of her as I can!

She tells a beautifully intricate story with loads of details and her characters are so real! My only "beef" is the less than acceptable copying done by whoever for the Kindle edition. If they keep on, they'll be ruining all the wonderful stories we've enjoyed for years.

Dorothy L. Sayers is one of my favorite authors. I have read every one of her novels about Lord Peter Wimsey several times, and I never fail to be delighted. Some of her mysteries are simple, some are wickedly complex, but all are entertaining and just plain fun to read! Her slow development of the romance between Lord Peter and Harriet Vane is from another time, when love took time to grow and patience was a primary virtue. This novel is third in the series, before the entry of Harriet Vane, so the focus is on Lord Peter and Bunter, his wonderful valet. The mystery builds around the unexpected, and possibly suspicious death of an elderly cancer patient. There is some violence in this novel, but in the manner of Greek plays it happens off-stage and we are left to deal with the consequences. It isn't necessary to read the Lord Peter Wimsey novels in sequence, but doing so affords the reader the pleasure of watching the author and the characters develop their many talents.

Dorothy L. Sayers' 1927 book, "Unnatural Death," is the third in her Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. I haven't read the whole series yet, but this one's the best of the first three. As usual for Sayers, the writing is excellent. It's so good and so modernly written, that you forget that the book is 87 years old (that is, until you hit the occasional change to social mores or the technological chasms that have sprung up since then). But that just makes the book more amazing. Compared to the first two books, I'm much happier with Wimsey's speech and behavior than the first, and the pacing is much better than the second. My only issue with the story is how Sayers wants us to misconstrue the relationship between two of the characters when it's extremely obvious that it's not what she wants us to believe. But, that's fairly minor. So, I'm very happy to rate the book at a Very Good 4 stars out of 5.The novels in the Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries are:1. Whose Body?2. Clouds of Witness3. Unnatural Death4. The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, 5)5. Strong Poison (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, 6)6. The Five Red Herrings (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, 7)7. Have His Carcase (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, 8)8. Murder Must Advertise (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, 10)9. The Nine Tailors (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, 11)10. Gaudy Night (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, 12)11. Busman's Honeymoon (The Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, 13)Note: my numbering differs from Amazon's because they include collections of short stories whereas my list is just of novels. Also, I can only include 10 links in the review, so the 11th Wimsey book is just a title.

Brilliant, with great characters and great writing. An unmixed pleasure for this aficionado. Some moral depth here and there and a great villain. A classic.