The Nine Tailors, Dorothy L. Sayers
Featuring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter Wimsey and Peter Jones as Bunter
The Nine Tailors is a book I think about fondly, although I can’t quite think of why. Some of it is the atmosphere, I think: the Englishness of this little village in the Fens, and the music of the bells woven all through the story — or, not music exactly, but the complex mathematical patterns of British bell-ringing. In a way, that’s how this mystery feels, too: it’s complex, with several mistaken identities and a long unsolved mystery. It’s also a sad one, because a family gets shattered through almost no fault of their own.
And the Reverend and his household are dear characters, of course.
The audio adaptation is pretty good, managing to make all the complex threads come together well. Ian Carmichael’s voice acting is great most of the time, though maybe a trifle overblown during the scene in the belfry. I guess it’s difficult to portray that scene without Peter constantly vocalising, though.
Dorothy Sayers is a pretty new discovery for me. I have seen her books around for awhile, but it was only recently that I realized that she writes exactly the sort of stories that I am often drawn too. I added the first in this series to my TBR. The BBC Audio Collection versions are something that I have found to be either fantastic, or horrid. They do Agatha Raisin mysteries very well.
Toady recently posted…Review: Blindness by José Saramanga
The BBC audio versions of Sayers’ novels are really good, IMHO — the casting alone was amazing.