The valet with a candlestick in the library

[nineveh_uk]

I have I my hands a copy of Peter Wimsey Investigates the Late Scholar, by Jill Paton Walsh, the prospect of which I have already discussed. I may or may not be able to read it over the weekend in view of the million and one other things I need to do.

In the interim, I offer:

[Poll #1946773]

Comments

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I love this idea! It would be absolutely full of angst and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Bunter's only into the detective stuff because Peter is - he's not going to be offering consoling cocoa when Peter's weeping over hanging Bunter's girlfriend. Perhaps Peter's best option is to get Hope to commit suicide and then shoot himself. Or Bunter has to choose between staying in England and fleeing abroad with her.

[littlered2.livejournal.com]

Bunter's only into the detective stuff because Peter is

I wonder if Peter still tries to get Bunter to chat up female servants to elicit information despite having a wife, and how well Bunter reacts to this.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

Alas so subject line so it can't be "The Thing With Feathers."

Depending on when in 1950s wouldn't there still be rationing of some items?

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I thikn feather dusters are a bit lightweight for a murder weapon!

Exactly! So there will be people moaning about still bloody rationing - or conversely that the price of meat has gone through the roof.

[executrix.livejournal.com]

PS--if Bunter with obscure poison in Miltown could be The Dolls of the Valet.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

*groans*

[elmey.livejournal.com]

Well I see my choices are right in line with popular demand :D (even if they don't hang together quite sensibly but why should that stop me the author!)

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

It certainly doesn't stop an awful lot of writers of detective fiction/TV!

[dolorous-ett.livejournal.com]

I find I've developed a strong aversion to YET MORE detective novels featuring lovingly described gory deaths of pretty young women. So let's have a man for a change.

Actually, just about any of the above will be an improvement on JPW, if my memories of Thrones, Dominations serves me correctly.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I know what you mean. It is a very trying phenomenon. Oh, let's be hard-hitting and different, lets murder another young women in a sexual and hideous way! No-one's every done that before, the readers/viewers will think we're so daring!

What I find so infuriating about T,D is that the manuscript has such potential, and JPW just doesn't get it. Grr!

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

I actually liked Hope Fanshaw as a character, I just didn't like her in that book -- she belonged in a different literary universe (not sure which one, but not that one). So I voted for her not to be either the murderer or murderee. This doesn't prevent me from hoping, no doubt fruitlessly, that she'll mysteriously vanish from the story (with mind-wiping spells all around for the other characters) and reappear in a different series.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

That's an interesting way of thinkig about it, and having had it suggested to me, I am inclined to agree with you. A story about a lower middle-class woman who sets up a photography studio and then falls in love with a man who is a senior domestic servant could be fantastic. Just as long as the man isn't Bunter.

Actually, I think she is mostly vanished - having proved Bunter's heterosexual credentials JPW doesn't seem thata bothered about his wife.

[sonetka.livejournal.com]

Ah, I didn't realize that. I read T,D, was underwhelmed, and read portions of the subsequent two at the bookstore -- enough to make it clear that these weren't the kind of bad books I was willing to spend money on.

[bronze-ribbons.livejournal.com]

I first read this as "IKEA murder spammers," and had a vision of comments mashing furniture names into Wallander quotes.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

Your inbox fills with gifs of Wallander assembling flatpacks.

[nineveh-uk.livejournal.com]

I'm surprised more writers don't use them. They're easy to come buy, work well for the price, and since everyone's got one it's hard to prove whodunnit.