Review: Murder Must Advertise

Murder Must Advertise
by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

My only quibble with this novel is that it includes an unnecessarily long section describing a cricket match. Bits of it are beautifully written (Sayers is like that) but there is no reason for it to take an entire chapter.

"With five minutes to go, ... watched the first ball of the over come skimming down towards him. It was a beauty. It was jam. He smote it as Saul smote the Philistines. It soared away in a splendid parabola, struck the pavilion roof with a noise like the crack of doom, rattled down the galvanized iron roofing, bounced into the enclosure where the scorers were sitting and broke a bottle of lemonade. The match was won." (p.260)

In this novel Lord Peter takes a job at Pym's Advertising where a man has recently died in a tumble down a circular stair. Oddly I spent the last several days working in a room (not my usual office) with a funny little circular stairway, but it didn't have knobs on the rails so I wasn't too worried. The investigation includes many twists and turns and lots of asides about the nature of advertising and commerce. It also has an appearance by Peter's sister Lady Mary who is a good character as she supports her brother's antics while taking a bit of the wind out of his sails when needed.