The Lord Peter Wimsey Collection: Books 1-5

Whose Body?; Clouds of Witness; Unnatural Death; Lord Peter Views the Body; The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club

By: Dorothy L. Sayers

Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble

Length: 38 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of the first five Lord Peter Wimsey detective books, read by Audie award-winning narrator Jonathan Keeble. A must-listen for fans of Agatha Christie's Poirot and Margery Allingham's Campion Mysteries, Lord Peter Wimsey is the immortal amateur sleuth created by Dorothy L Sayers.

Whose Body?, Book One: In this, his first murder case, Lord Peter untangles the ghastly mystery of the corpse in the bath. The naked body was lying in the tub. Not unusual for a proper bath, but highly irregular for murder - especially with a pair of gold pince-nez deliberately perched before the sightless eyes. What's more, the face appeared to have been shaved after death. The police assumed that the victim was a prominent financier, but Lord Peter Wimsey, who dabbled in mystery detection as a hobby, knew better.

Clouds of Witness, Book Two: The Duke of Denver, accused of murder, stands trial for his life in the House of Lords. Naturally, his brother Lord Peter Wimsey is investigating the crime - this is a family affair. The murder took place at the duke's shooting lodge and Lord Peter's sister was engaged to marry the dead man. But why does the duke refuse to cooperate with the investigation? Can he really be guilty, or is he covering up for someone?

Unnatural Death, Book Three: The wealthy Agatha Dawson is dead - a trifle sooner than expected - but there are no apparent signs of foul play. Lord Peter Wimsey, however, senses that something is amiss and refuses to let the case rest--even without any clues or leads. Suddenly, he is faced with another murder: Agatha's maid. Can super-sleuth Wimsey find the murderer and solve the case before he becomes the killer's next victim?

Lord Peter Views the Body, Book Four: In this delightful collection of 12 Wimsey adventures, Dorothy L. Sayers reveals a gruesome but bewitching side rarely shown in Lord Peter's full-length adventures. He deals with such marvels as the man with copper fingers, Uncle Meleager's missing will, the cat in the bag, the footsteps that ran, the stolen stomach, and the man without a face.

The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, Book Five: Ninety-year-old General Fentiman was definitely dead, but no one knew exactly when he had died—and the time of death was the determining factor in a half-million-pound inheritance. Lord Peter Wimsey would need every bit of his amazing skills to unravel the mysteries of why the General's lapel was without a red poppy on Armistice Day, how the club's telephone was fixed without a repairman, and, most puzzling of all, why the great man's knee swung freely when the rest of him was stiff with rigor mortis.

Public Domain (P)2024 SNR Audio

Narrator

Jonathan Keeble has done a masterful job of narrating these stories! The variety of voices and accents made it delightful.

Finally! A good recording of one of my fav queens of mystery.

The performance was wonderful, and these are some of my favorite mysteries. Deftly mixing humor and social commentary and intrigue. The characters are fantastic.

Wonderful narrator. A treat to listen.

Just remember the books contain disgusting prejudices prevalent at the time Sayers wrote these novels. I chose to hold my nose and read on because the plots are ingenious and the characters delightful in spite of their foibles.

Exceedingly well done

I’ve tried other performances of the novels and couldn’t get into them. The narrator is excellent, and I came away with a completely new appreciation of Lord Wimsey. The short story collection was entirely new to me and absolutely delightful.

Marvelous

The reader is very good, just as the author and the detective are. It’s nice to deal with quality writing and reasonable milieu. I don’t like the short stories as well as the books. I love the short story form, but some writers are better at it than others. I’m hoping for another set of more of DLS books and Lord Peter and Bunter and all the other characters.

Excellent all around

Typically I have heard BBC plays for Wimsey but this true reading is different and justr excellent

Five for one credit

This package gives the listener 5 Lord Peter Wimsey books for one credit. Four novels and her first collection of short stories. Jonathan Keeble does a creditable job of narration - he isn't Ian Carmichael, my favorite narrator of this series, but I feel he does a good job. And to get the first 5 for one credit is a bargain, if you don't already own these already. And I admit, I did already own the four novels, and purchased this to get the short story collection Lord Peter Views the Body, but this version of some of the novels will now become my go to listen, especially Whose Body? which has been out of copyright in the US for a long time, and has been read by some dreadful narrators.

Hopefully one of these days Audible will get some of the other Sayers/Lord Peter novels available in unabridged for for US listeners. Especially Have His Carcase, Five Red Herrings, and Nine Tailors. And if they choose to do new recordings, I would be content if they had Jonathan Keeble narrate.

What a treasure to find..!

I had no idea that this gem was a possibility and I consider myself blessed to have find this series, I put it right up there with P.G wood house, Sherlock, father brown and the like..! What a wonderful piece

Excellent narration & interesting stories

They start out sort of slow, but build momentum and unexpected solutions. The date of these writing lend themselves to a touch of racism on rare occasions, but it’s fleeting and not the view of the hero or main characters who are charitable to all. So in a sense, they were “before their time”.

I love the narrator, the wittiness of Lord Peter, and the humor written into the characters. It’s more light hearted than Agatha Christie or Doyle.

mood

false leads not resolved too early. not always the least likely. Peter is a more intelligent Bertie Wooster.