Review: Dorothy L. Sayers: The Complete Stories

Dorothy L. Sayers: The Complete Stories by Dorothy L. Sayers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The early stories, in particular, tend to be quite linear; they're the brief working out of an idea rather than a fully fleshed-out story, like the novels. As the collection goes on, they get stronger, and introduce more of what Sayers did best: all the parts that weren't the mystery, like the quirks of the characters and the description of the milieu. The later ones, especially those with one-off characters, often build up a powerful emotional atmosphere, only to bring in a twist at the end, revealing that the viewpoint character and the reader have both been working on false assumptions.

There are three groups, each (I think) presented chronologically within the group. The first is Sayers' most famous character, Lord Peter Wimsey, at various times of his life; he's single for most of them, but there are several where he's married. One of them involves the birth of his first child, and that's more interesting than the actual mystery (which I guessed, uncharacteristically); another involves that child at the age of six, with two younger brothers, and barely any mystery at all. They vary in quality and interest. The best of them are as good as a chapter from one of the novels.

The second group involves the unlikely amateur detective Montague Egg, who's a commercial traveller for a wines and spirits firm. The first story uses his expert knowledge in detecting the criminal; in later stories, he's (sometimes to an unlikely degree) involved in various other cases that happen to occur in his vicinity, in the usual crime-ridden Britain of a cosy detective. He's constantly quoting the little rhyming maxims of the Salesman's Handbook, treats his occupation as a calling, and is always ready to lend a hand to a fellow human being; he is, in fact, a good Egg. His powers of observation and deduction are a less showy version of Sherlock Holmes's. Particularly with the last few stories, he tends to offer a plausible explanation for the events and a likely suspect, and then the story stops without going through the tedious business of confirming it.

The third group are the one-offs, the stories featuring neither Wimsey nor Egg; none of their characters recur between stories, either. Here we see Sayers doing another thing she does well: building psychological tension, relieved at the end with a twist or, sometimes, a catharsis. Sometimes the viewpoint characters are witnesses, sometimes they're involved in the commission of the crime, sometimes they're even potential victims. Short stories allow an author to explore ideas that they're not sure will work at full length, and this is part of what Sayers is doing here, freed, also, from the constraints of working with established characters.

At their weakest, the stories in this volume tell too much rather than showing, deal with mostly trivial matters, end abruptly, and are forgettable. But there are plenty of strong stories too, and some well-drawn characters and clever situations. I personally felt that the Wimsey stories are mainly for completists; the Egg stories are worth reading for themselves; and the one-off stories are, at their best, better than either.

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