Best Selling Books by Dorothy L. Sayers

One of the founding mothers of mystery, Dorothy Sayers first introduced the popular character Lord Peter Wimsey in 1923 with the publication of Whose Body? Over the next twenty years, more novels and short stories about the aristocratic amateur sleuth appeared, each one as cunningly written as the next.Now in single volume, here are all the Lord Peter Wimsey stories, a treasure for any mystery lover. From "The Fantastic Horror of the Cat in the Bag" to "The Image in the Mirror" and "Talboys," this collection is Lord Peter at his best -- and a true testament to the art of detective fiction.

An irresistible collection of “truly remarkable” stories from the master of classic mysteries, featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and Montague Egg (The New York Times). Most noblemen would prefer to avoid a charred corpse in a garage. But Lord Peter Wimsey has never seen such a body, and cannot resist the opportunity when it comes along. The corpse is burned beyond recognition, but the watch it wears remains pristine—stopped precisely at seven minutes past nine. These are the sorts of clues that great murder cases are built around, and few detectives are more adept at finding them than Wimsey, the famous creation of Dorothy L. Sayers. In this volume, two classic Wimsey stories appear alongside five starring Montague Egg, an eccentric wine salesman whose powers of deduction could give His Lordship a run for his money. A handful of other glittering puzzles round out the volume, serving as testament to Sayers’s enduring status as a star of crime fiction. In the Teeth of the Evidence is the 14th 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.

Murder is hardly the best way for Lord Peter and his bride, the famous mystery writer Harriet Vane, to start their honeymoon. It all begins when the former owner of their newly acquired estate is found quite nastily dead in the cellar. All too quickly, what Lord Peter had hoped would be a very private and romantic stay in the country has turned into a most baffling case, with a misspelled "notise" to the milkman at its center and a dead man who''s been discovered in a most intriguing condition: with not a spot of blood on his smashed skull and not a penny less than six hundred pounds in his pocket.

In this play, Dorothy L. Sayers reworked the legend of Faustus as a serious ''comedy, '' presenting Faustus as one who chooses wicked means as an end to an admirable goal: the relief of suffering (while becoming entirely focused on his own supposed satisfactions). In the last scene, in the Court of Heaven, Azrael, angel of the souls of the dead, claims Faustus'' soul, opposing Mephistopheles'' claim. With the knowledge of good and evil returned to him, Faustus finally accepts that his evil must be cleansed, with Mephistopheles serving as the agent of that purgation. Faustus accepts his need for cleansing, trusting that the divine Judge/Court President, will indeed in mercy meet him at the very gates of hell, finally redeemed.

In this play, Dorothy L. Sayers addressed the crimes and problems of human life, especially those of the victors in war, in an entirely novel way, by precipitating an airman in the very moment of his death back into the company of citizens of the "City," in this case, Lichfield. The citizens range from Adam and Eve (Adam himself the inventor of the axe which kills Abel) together with other biblical characters in the history of redemption brought to new life as members of the City (e.g., Judas is a common informer). Others bear burdens of shame, toil, fear, poverty, and ingratitude. Former inhabitants (e.g., George Fox, Dr. Johnson) help the airman see that no more than they can he shift the burden of guilt and grief that they all share. There is but one remedy, to join the "Persona Dei" carrying his cross, finding indeed that he bears their burdens for them. The "Persona Dei" is finally seen in resurrection and glory.

A prominent financier vanishes before bedtime, without his clothes. Hours later, a corpse is found in a bathtub wearing only pince-nez eyeglasses. When it''s determined that the body is not that of the financier, it''s up to amateur detective Lord Peter Wimsey to uncover the naked truth. As the part-time sleuth investigates what these men - one dead, one missing, both starkers - have in common, the pieces of two puzzles converge, and the case becomes more dangerous by the clue. Dorothy L. Sayers''s debut whodunit introduced the world to her British gentleman detective Lord Wimsey. The first in her series, Whose Body? still delights and surprises right down to its devious denouement.