Unnatural death.

An old woman dies a little sooner than expected, and everyone agrees it was only illness taking its course — everyone except a doctor whose doubt sets Lord Peter Wimsey on the trail of a most ingenious murder.

What it's about

Unnatural Death is one of Dorothy L. Sayers's celebrated Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. When a death that seems entirely natural arouses a nagging suspicion, the gentleman-sleuth Wimsey takes up the puzzle: if it was murder, how was it done, by whom, and why, when the victim appears to have died of nothing at all? With the help of the redoubtable Miss Climpson, Wimsey pursues a case that turns as much on medical possibility and questions of inheritance as on the classic problems of alibi and opportunity. The pleasure lies in watching a seemingly perfect crime slowly reveal its seams.

Themes

The novel is a fine example of golden-age detection, delighting in the how of murder as much as the who. Beneath the cleverness Sayers explores greed and the lengths it drives people to, the ethics of pursuing a criminal, and Wimsey's own troubled awareness of the consequences of his investigation. Wit, method and moral seriousness are held in her characteristic balance.

Why it still matters

Sayers stands among the great masters of the classic English mystery, and Wimsey is one of its most engaging detectives — urbane, humane and formidably intelligent. Her novels raised the genre's literary ambitions, and Unnatural Death remains an elegant, satisfying puzzle that also thinks about what detection costs. It is golden-age crime writing at a high polish.

Who it's for

For lovers of classic English detective fiction, admirers of Agatha Christie seeking a kindred pleasure, and anyone who enjoys a fairly clued mystery solved by a memorable sleuth.