Hangman's Holiday by Dorothy Sayers

I loved Gaudy Night and couldn’t wait to read the next installment (Busman’s Honeymoon) in the Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane novels. Then I saw that I’d missed a book in the sequence and “had” to go back and read it, living up to my box-ticking “J” status in the Myers-Briggs world.

No one can quibble with the fact that Sayers is a master storyteller. All of the stories in Hangman's Holiday had me on the edge of my seat and quite a few were creepier than I’m used to.

It was fun to be introduced to the new-to-me protagonist of Montague Egg. He is a wine salesman who stumbles onto several crime scenes and freely shares his wisdom with the investigators. Just so you don’t take him too seriously, he often throws in some adages from the Salesman’s Handbook such as, “Whether you’re wrong or whether you’re right, it’s always better to be polite.” (These are even funnier when you remember that Dorothy Sayers worked in the advertising business and had a knack for coming up with these ditties.)

As always, I love any references to Wimsey’s love of books so I was not disappointed when in the very first chapter, a man picks up the novel that Wimsey had been reading and Wimsey waits patiently for it. When the man realizes what he has done and offers it back… “It doesn’t matter at all,” said Wimsey graciously, “I know it by heart. I only brought it along with me because its’s handy for reading a few pages when you are stuck in a place like this for the night. You can always take it up and find something entertaining.” How charming to have a book that you know so well that opening it up to random pages will always give you pleasure.

Another winner from Dorothy Sayers.

Blessings,