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Avon Books (1968), Mass Market Paperback, 286 pages
Description
Fiction. Mystery. HTML: "Beyond question one of the most skillful mystery writers . . . offers a first rate piece of work. . . . Lord Peter Wimsey [is] at his amusing best. . . . The book is a treat" (The New York Times). The majestic landscape of the Scottish coast has attracted artists and fishermen for centuries. In the idyllic village of Kirkcudbright, every resident and visitor has 2 things in common: They either fish or paint (or do both), and they all hate Sandy Campbell. Though a fair painter, he is a rotten human being, and cannot enter a pub without raising the blood pressure of everybody there. No one weeps when he dies. Campbell's body is found at the bottom of a steep hill, and his easel stands at the top, suggesting that he took a tumble while painting. But something about the death doesn't sit right with gentleman sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. No one in Kirkcudbright liked Campbell, and 6 hated him enough to become suspects; 5 are innocent, and the other is the perpetrator of the most ingenious murder Lord Peter has ever encountered. The Five Red Herrings is the 7th book in the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries, but you may enjoy the series by reading the books in any order. This ebook features an illustrated biography of Dorothy L. Sayers including rare images from the Marion E. Wade Center at Wheaton College..… (more)
User reviews
LibraryThing member pgchuis
I gave up on this about half way through. There was so much about trains to Ayr and trains to Euston and pages of infinitesimally detailed discussion of train time tables and boats to Ireland and bicycles with different tyres and it was just very very uninteresting and impossible to follow. The
Very disappointing.
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characters were hard to differentiate - there was a Scottish inspector, sergeant and constable and in my mind they were completely interchangeable. I could only keep the suspects straight by referring back to the first chapter. Also, the rendering of Scottish dialect was distracting: what on earth is "imph'm" meant to indicate? I found it difficult to understand why Whimsey was there at all and Bunter seemed completely out of place. Very disappointing.
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LibraryThing member jkholm
The Five Red Herrings
By Dorothy Sayers
Since I enjoy both mystery novels and works by modern Christian authors, I was curious about the fiction of Dorothy Sayers. She is well-known for her novels featuring the detective Lord Peter Wimsey. She also wrote Christian essays and plays as well as a
The plot involves a murder that takes place in a small town in Scotland in which many artists live and work. One of them, a man named Campbell, is not well liked and quickly turns up dead. Peter Wimsey happens to be staying in the area and comes to the conclusion that Campbell was murdered. Based on the evidence at the scene, one of the local artists committed the murder. Naturally, all of the suspects have a motive as well as an alibi so it’s up to Wimsey to discover the truth.
The biggest problem I had with the novel is Sayers’ choice of phonetically spelling out the heavy Scottish accents of many of the characters. This results in lots of apostrophes and makes reading the dialogue tiresome and difficult. Since the entire novel takes place in Scotland, nearly every chapter is filled with hard to read accents. Robert Louis Stevenson did something similar in Kidnapped, but that novel was a picnic to read compared to Herrings.
Another problem is the use of train timetables as a plot device. There are endless discussions of when this train leaves this town and arrives at the next and which character could have taken which train and how long it would take to get there. It’s all ridiculously confusing. The various stories told by the suspects are lengthy and confusing. Even the real story of how the murder was committed is long and too reliant on a very specific timetable of events thus making it implausible.
Finally, I don’t know how he is portrayed in the other novels, but Wmsey comes across as an arrogant, disagreeable know-it-all. I realize that many of the great fictional detectives, like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot are arrogant, but at least I like them. I’m not sure about Wimsey yet.
I read a few reviews on Amazon.com and noted that I’m not the only one who found the accents and timetables frustrating. Apparently, Sayers wrote better mysteries than this one and I won’t let my dislike of The Five Red Herrings discourage me from reading other Sayers’ works.
By Dorothy Sayers
Since I enjoy both mystery novels and works by modern Christian authors, I was curious about the fiction of Dorothy Sayers. She is well-known for her novels featuring the detective Lord Peter Wimsey. She also wrote Christian essays and plays as well as a
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translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. I picked up The Five Red Herrings at random, not knowing with which Sayers novel to begin. Depending on your point of view, I either made the wrong choice or a very good one. I made a wrong choice since I did not like the novel and found it extremely frustrating and difficult to read. But on the other hand, if this is her worst novel, things can only improve. The plot involves a murder that takes place in a small town in Scotland in which many artists live and work. One of them, a man named Campbell, is not well liked and quickly turns up dead. Peter Wimsey happens to be staying in the area and comes to the conclusion that Campbell was murdered. Based on the evidence at the scene, one of the local artists committed the murder. Naturally, all of the suspects have a motive as well as an alibi so it’s up to Wimsey to discover the truth.
The biggest problem I had with the novel is Sayers’ choice of phonetically spelling out the heavy Scottish accents of many of the characters. This results in lots of apostrophes and makes reading the dialogue tiresome and difficult. Since the entire novel takes place in Scotland, nearly every chapter is filled with hard to read accents. Robert Louis Stevenson did something similar in Kidnapped, but that novel was a picnic to read compared to Herrings.
Another problem is the use of train timetables as a plot device. There are endless discussions of when this train leaves this town and arrives at the next and which character could have taken which train and how long it would take to get there. It’s all ridiculously confusing. The various stories told by the suspects are lengthy and confusing. Even the real story of how the murder was committed is long and too reliant on a very specific timetable of events thus making it implausible.
Finally, I don’t know how he is portrayed in the other novels, but Wmsey comes across as an arrogant, disagreeable know-it-all. I realize that many of the great fictional detectives, like Sherlock Holmes and Hercule Poirot are arrogant, but at least I like them. I’m not sure about Wimsey yet.
I read a few reviews on Amazon.com and noted that I’m not the only one who found the accents and timetables frustrating. Apparently, Sayers wrote better mysteries than this one and I won’t let my dislike of The Five Red Herrings discourage me from reading other Sayers’ works.
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LibraryThing member ashleytylerjohn
Better as it went along, when I finally figured out what she was doing (I didn't identify the murderer, I mean I figured out the author's narrative intention). It's in the title: five red herrings, and she very clearly (if I'd been paying proper attention) sets out 6 compelling suspects, only one
At first I found the suspects hard to tell apart (all were male painters with nothing in particular for me to seize on by way of distinguishing), but I didn't worry about it, and it didn't matter, eventually they fell into place as "the one with the wife," "the one with the beard," etc.
And don't even bother trying to maintain a sense of the oft-cited train schedule--that's a joke, really, like the Californians on SNL who are experts on their local highway system. The characters in this novel are always saying things like "but he canna have made it to Strathmashie by 10:45 unless he took the 8:15 to Inverey and transferred to the Flichity train at 9:30." They know the schedule, so you don't have to. There are pages of it, and each time the characters earnestly began debate train times, I just giggle. I think that was the intended reaction.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
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of which will be the killer--no need to wonder if perhaps the maid did it, or the artist's wife's sister, no, it's going to be one of the 6. And the delight is that every Sayers mystery is structured differently. In this particular book there's a lot of setting up, and then the suspects have a chapter each to state their case, after which various stakeholders lay out their theories about whodunnit (in two marvelous chapters, very efficiently titled), after which Wimsey solves it all in the three final chapters.At first I found the suspects hard to tell apart (all were male painters with nothing in particular for me to seize on by way of distinguishing), but I didn't worry about it, and it didn't matter, eventually they fell into place as "the one with the wife," "the one with the beard," etc.
And don't even bother trying to maintain a sense of the oft-cited train schedule--that's a joke, really, like the Californians on SNL who are experts on their local highway system. The characters in this novel are always saying things like "but he canna have made it to Strathmashie by 10:45 unless he took the 8:15 to Inverey and transferred to the Flichity train at 9:30." They know the schedule, so you don't have to. There are pages of it, and each time the characters earnestly began debate train times, I just giggle. I think that was the intended reaction.
(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s).
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LibraryThing member dmturner
Railway schedules, endless bicycles, elaborate deceptions, endless nattering, indistinguishable suspects, meticulous lithping, and Scottish dialect. Nearly unreadable.
LibraryThing member aliceunderskies
By far the weakest of the otherwise uniformly delightful Wimsey mysteries. This one was overlong and underexciting, with too little of Lord Peter Himself, barely any Bunter or Parker, and nothing at all of my favourites, Harriet and Miss Climpson. If the tragic paucity of everyone good weren't bad
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enough, half of the dialogue is presented in brogue. I hate and despise written-out accents and dialect in any form but tiny doses or great importance to the plot. I've got zero interest in puzzling my way through incomprehensible sentences, tortuously misspelled to give a sense of "setting" or something--it's definitely a situation where I'd rather be told than shown. A very disappointing misstep. Show Less
LibraryThing member foggidawn
This is not one of my favorite Lord Peter Wimsey books, though the complicated plot and over-abundant Scots dialect make it one of the most memorable ones. Lord Peter retreats to the picturesque Scottish countryside and, of course, there is a murder. Campbell, a hot-tempered artist, is found at the
I'll admit, this one was a bit of a slog for me. Reading before bed, it was all too easy to drift off to sleep when the police started discussing train time-tables. There were far too many trains, towns, bicycles, and suspects, and they were far too difficult to tell apart. Wimsey doesn't shine as much in this one as in previous books, and after all of the character work in Strong Poison, this detached and relatively unemotional Lord Peter is a bit of a let-down. Still, it's Lord Peter, so worth a read!
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bottom of a cliff, but his death was no accident. Any of six other local artists could have committed the crime, but only one of them did.I'll admit, this one was a bit of a slog for me. Reading before bed, it was all too easy to drift off to sleep when the police started discussing train time-tables. There were far too many trains, towns, bicycles, and suspects, and they were far too difficult to tell apart. Wimsey doesn't shine as much in this one as in previous books, and after all of the character work in Strong Poison, this detached and relatively unemotional Lord Peter is a bit of a let-down. Still, it's Lord Peter, so worth a read!
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LibraryThing member angharad_reads
Ugh. What crap. This is a Peter Wimsey timetable mystery. Timetable! Must be half the book taken up with "but what if he rode his bike in the other direction and pretended to get off that train first". And then the madcap reënactment at the end, but with no surprise killer plot twist. And not
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enough piffle. It gets more than a single star because it's Wimsey. Show Less
LibraryThing member ds_61_12
Murder in Scotland. Six suspects, all artists, all with a dodgy alibi. It is up to Lord Peter Wimsey to solve the crime.
Keeps you on your toes. Very ingenous.
Keeps you on your toes. Very ingenous.
LibraryThing member jjmcgaffey
Eh. It's a Lord Peter, so it's not terrible, but it really doesn't catch me. Most of it is very dry - timetables and theories - and Peter never quite hits his stride for me (and Bunter only gets one scene, and that one kind of after the fact). The fact that a clue is explicitly withheld from the
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readers near the beginning is _very_ annoying - Peter finds (or rather, doesn't find) something, and the author explicitly says she's not telling us what it was, we have to deduce it. In fact, I remembered what was missing, though not who had it. Then everybody is scattered all over the map, and half of them are lying (mostly badly). The various detectives come up with assorted theories for what happened, each matching most of the data they have - but they keep getting demolished by inconvenient facts. And Peter is very smug about having the solution - instead of telling them his idea, he proposes a reenactment to prove he's got it right. That's almost exciting - but then we get distracted by seeing the 'villain' as a person and it ends a little flat. Though if Gowan had to testify in court, there was a bit of drama and intense embarrassment that didn't even get mentioned. Maybe it grew back before he had to speak - though the jury's reaction says to me you could still see what happened. Overall - not terrible, but I'm not particularly interested in rereading it. Show Less
LibraryThing member isabelx
I first read this book in my early teens, soon after going on a school camping trip to Galloway where this book is set, so I have always had a soft spot for this Lord Peter Wimsey mystery.
LibraryThing member BenBennetts
Like "Gaudy Night", this stands out among Sayers' oeuvre, above all for the astonishingly powerful evocation of setting. I read a review once which described this as arguably one of the four greatest novels of the twentieth century. I can understand where the reviewer was coming from.
LibraryThing member katekf
This is a charming Peter Wimsey novel in which he helps the local investigators of Kirkcudbright in Scotland to understand what happened to the artist Campbell. The majority of the book follows the various detective amongst numerous leads about timetables and bicycles and artists all over Scotland.
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It is not the strongest Wimsey but it has the nice addition of seeing other types of investigation and how Wimsey can work within a team. The community of artists and townspeople that Sayers creates is charming and I personally would happily spend a week in Kirkcudbright. Show Less
LibraryThing member Kasthu
I enjoy Dorothy Sayers’s mysteries, I really do; but with the last couple that I’ve read, I just haven’t liked them quite as much as, say, Murder Must Advertise or The Nine Tailors (her two best, in my opinion, so reading them first was kind of like eating desert before dimmer).
The Five Red
Character development isn’t all that strong, either. In the last book, we met Harriet Vane, so I would have thought that she’d at least be mentioned—not so much in this book. Lord Peter Wimsey, however, is a shadow of his former self, and he fades into the background most of the time. And Bunter, his faithful sidekick, only gets a brief scene. To be honest, I just didn’t care all that much about the mystery or who committed the crime, so much so that I bailed on this book about 300 pages in.
The Five Red
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Herrings takes place in an artists’ community of Scotland, where Lord Peter is conveniently at hand to investigate the murder of an unpopular (of course) artist. All of the suspects in the case are artists; the key to this mystery is discovering who, since the culprit leads the detectives on the case on a wild goose chase half the time. I have to admit that I kind of got bored about halfway through; the mystery deals endlessly with timetables. Usually, I’m all about the small details that make up a really good murder; but the endless theorizing about who did what where and when got really, really tiring after a while.Character development isn’t all that strong, either. In the last book, we met Harriet Vane, so I would have thought that she’d at least be mentioned—not so much in this book. Lord Peter Wimsey, however, is a shadow of his former self, and he fades into the background most of the time. And Bunter, his faithful sidekick, only gets a brief scene. To be honest, I just didn’t care all that much about the mystery or who committed the crime, so much so that I bailed on this book about 300 pages in.
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LibraryThing member JaneSteen
Where I got the book: purchased (used) on Amazon. Continuing my Lord Peter Wimsey re-read.
Ah, the Wimsey book I never liked. I like it better now, but I still think it lacks something of the other books. Wimsey is in Scotland, presumably getting away from it all (it, by now, meaning Harriet Vane,
So we end up with six suspects, all painters, and the novel goes into excruciating detail examining the movements and motives of each of them. Railway timetables and other kinds of timetable are much in evidence, making this a hard read. In addition many of the characters speak in broad Scots, and peersonally ah'm no verra guid at followin' sich a mess o' dialogue, ye ken. Worse, we even have one witness who talkth like thith - I think Sayers is indicating here that the gentleman is Jewish, as she was cheerfully bigoted after the manner of her generation.
And yet if you have the patience to wade through the Scots and the timetables and all the business about bicycles, it's a very clever mystery. Although Wimsey solves it NOT on the strength of all the miles and miles of careful reconstruction of the crime but on the strength of the aforementioned unspoken clue, which means that basically the entire middle 4/5 of the book is a RED HERRING, so yeesh.
For Wimsey devotees there are also some nice little character touches, foreshadowing the deepening of character that was to come in the other Wimsey/Vane books. So for me it was fun to encounter what almost came across as new information. And, of course, cleverly written, although the older I get the more I notice the instability of POV that haunts the books. But, you see, DLS had the trick of making us into drooling Wimsey fans, showing the power of a damn good character to make up for any amount of technical faults.
Ah, the Wimsey book I never liked. I like it better now, but I still think it lacks something of the other books. Wimsey is in Scotland, presumably getting away from it all (it, by now, meaning Harriet Vane,
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who was in the last book). Somewhat incongruously, he is hanging out in a artists' community, when one of the painters, an argumentative bugger called Campbell, is found dead. And Wimsey immediately knows he's murdered, because of a detail that you really have to have read the book once before to understand - foreknowledge makes the whole of the book much clearer. I always kind of resented Sayers for not giving the reader that clue early on, because after all isn't the whole point of a classic murder mystery that the reader has ALL the facts presented to them?So we end up with six suspects, all painters, and the novel goes into excruciating detail examining the movements and motives of each of them. Railway timetables and other kinds of timetable are much in evidence, making this a hard read. In addition many of the characters speak in broad Scots, and peersonally ah'm no verra guid at followin' sich a mess o' dialogue, ye ken. Worse, we even have one witness who talkth like thith - I think Sayers is indicating here that the gentleman is Jewish, as she was cheerfully bigoted after the manner of her generation.
And yet if you have the patience to wade through the Scots and the timetables and all the business about bicycles, it's a very clever mystery. Although Wimsey solves it NOT on the strength of all the miles and miles of careful reconstruction of the crime but on the strength of the aforementioned unspoken clue, which means that basically the entire middle 4/5 of the book is a RED HERRING, so yeesh.
For Wimsey devotees there are also some nice little character touches, foreshadowing the deepening of character that was to come in the other Wimsey/Vane books. So for me it was fun to encounter what almost came across as new information. And, of course, cleverly written, although the older I get the more I notice the instability of POV that haunts the books. But, you see, DLS had the trick of making us into drooling Wimsey fans, showing the power of a damn good character to make up for any amount of technical faults.
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LibraryThing member benfulton
A terrific instance of the murderer who makes an insanely complicated alibi for himself only to be caught out by the hero. So good it's to the point where the book is more or less a parody of the genre. Some of Agatha Christie's stuff have the murderers preplanning alibis even more complicated, but
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since she invented the type I guess they don't really count as parodies. Show Less
LibraryThing member Crowyhead
As always, Sayers has conceived a witty, twisty mystery. In this case, a surly artist is murdered, and there are six suspects who have a motive and equally poor alibis. Five of them are red herrings, and one is the real murderer. Will Lord Peter get to the bottom of the mystery? Well, of course he
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will. The only thing I didn't really like about this in terms of the mystery is that Sayers very blatantly witholds an important clue, which makes the book a fun puzzle but does cause problems for the suspension of disbelief. Plus it annoys me when I, as the reader, don't have the benefit of all of the clues that the fictional detective has. Still, this was entertaining enough to rate 4/5, nonetheless. Show Less
LibraryThing member JeremyPreacher
Very much enjoyed the setting and the layers of mysteries. As usual I felt it bogged down a little in the middle, but this was overall one of the better Wimsey mysteries, I thought.
LibraryThing member veracite
I cannot put enough emphasis on my recommendation NOT TO READ THIS BOOK. All the dialogue is written 'phonetically' to help you get a real sense of the Scots accent and the plot revolves around British country train timetables! Two boring things that are very boring together. Actually, Wodehouse
Here's a jolly example of the accentising:
The mon was deid before he got intae the burn. 'Twas the scart on the heid that did it.
Two hundred and eighty-four pages of it.
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and Christie can make an amusing thing out of a train timetable but Sayers, not so much.Here's a jolly example of the accentising:
The mon was deid before he got intae the burn. 'Twas the scart on the heid that did it.
Two hundred and eighty-four pages of it.
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LibraryThing member JeffreyMarks
It's Peter Wimsey, so it rates at least 4 stars, but the Scottish accents were so thick that I had trouble reading in places. Still a good book with a well-plotted mystery at its heart.
LibraryThing member AmphipodGirl
My least favorite Lord Peter Wimsey novel.
LibraryThing member DeltaQueen50
The Five Red Herrings by Dorothy Sayers features Sir Peter Wimsey as he aids the police in solving a murder in a Scottish artist’s colony. A very disagreeable man has been found dead, and it isn’t long before it has been decided that this was no accident.
Timing and train schedules are very
This was a fun and intelligent mystery. Sir Peter is in fine form, and as he assists the police as they work through their lists of suspects, he has his eyes open for the one thing that will decide for once and for all which one of the suspects is the actual murderer. The final clue? Well, that would be telling, but it’s wise to bear in mind that both the victim and the suspects were all artists.
Timing and train schedules are very
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important in the solving of this case. A murder that can only be solved by working out the numbers and Sir Peter Wimsey is just the man to do it. There are six valid suspects, but only one committed the deed, the other five are red herrings.This was a fun and intelligent mystery. Sir Peter is in fine form, and as he assists the police as they work through their lists of suspects, he has his eyes open for the one thing that will decide for once and for all which one of the suspects is the actual murderer. The final clue? Well, that would be telling, but it’s wise to bear in mind that both the victim and the suspects were all artists.
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LibraryThing member MargaretPinardAuthor
Library copy, alas! This was a triumph of wit and suspense and humor and setting and accent and period- just a delicious bite into the Sayers apple. Can't wait to read her others!
LibraryThing member KimMR
There were plenty of things about this book that I loved: Lord Peter lapsing into blank verse, the accents of the various characters as re-created by the audiobook narrator, the setting, the re-enactment of the crime. However, I was frequently lost in the timetable discussions and I found it very
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difficult to keep the names and the characteristics (not to mention the alibis!) of the various suspects in my head. As it was an audiobook, there was no easy flipping back a few pages to work things out. Suffice to say, this is not my favourite Sayers. But even Sayers at less than her most brilliant is a lot better than countless others! Show Less
LibraryThing member antiquary
Competently done, but not my favorite Wimsey novel. Setting in a community of painters in Galloway in Scotland is perhaps the most interesting aspect. It seems to have been Sayers' demonstration that she could do the "railway timetable alibi mystery" subgenre which was popular at the time.
LibraryThing member ChrisSterry
By far my least favourite Lord Peter Wimsey novel. The plot was over complex, the various artists, all addressed by surname, had names which were too similar, and I could not abide the faux Scots dialogue.
Language
Original publication date
1931-02-26
Local notes
Lord Peter, 07
DDC/MDS
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