Four complete Lord Peter Wimsey novels Book

I am so glad I have been properly introduced to Dorothy Sayers. This compendium starts with the earliest and ends with the latest dated of the stories, and that is about how well I liked each one. The first two, written in the twenties, are fun, typical British cozy type mysteries. The characters are interesting, but not very well developed, except for P. Wimsey, but even he is fairly shallow. In the second two stories, written in the thirties, the characters have gained depth, and through the mystery itself, Sayers is looking at societal problems, philosophical questions, and letting her humour take a wider view then just bon mots by her star detective/aristocrat. Gaudy Night was the best of them all; more of an exploration of reconciling love, work, intellectual pursuit, family, the fear of loss of self that comes from a match with an equal, feelings of personal obligation, then a mystery. Gaudy Night is one that will go in my permanent collection and be reread. Even the fact that the heroine in this story begins to work on a paper on Sheridan Fanu, and there is a brief discussion of his take on horror thrilled me. I will now hunt out her other books and read them in the hopes that there are more glimpses of her particular magic to be found.