In which Charis and Sharon recap the-mystery-thus-far as it appears at approximately the halfway point of the book. We also get (pretty much immediately) sidetracked by a discussion of blackmail in Victorian and Golden Age detective fiction, discuss the character of Dian de Momerie, spend time teasing out the importance of sincerity and honesty in Lord Peter’s romantic life and in Sayers’ own writing, and more.
This episode touches on the howdunnit of the Victor Dean murder but does not give away the whodunnit or the rest of the mystery plot.
Shownotes:
- In our conversation about the attitude of Victorian and Golden Age detectives toward blackmailers, we discuss Holmes’ characterization of the titular blackmailer in “The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton”: “Do you feel a creeping, shrinking sensation, Watson, when you stand before the serpents in the Zoo and see the slithery, gliding, venomous creatures, with their deadly eyes and wicked, flattened faces? Well, that’s how Milverton impresses me. I’ve had to do with fifty murderers in my career, but the worst of them never gave me the repulsion which I have for this fellow.” We also bring up “The Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker,” a Lord Peter short story found in the LORD PETER VIEWS THE BODY collection, wherein Sir Impey Biggs states he’d refuse to represent a blackmailer in the court of law.
- We refer back to Charis’ framing of “the mystery of the mystery” and “the mystery of the plot,” which we discuss at more length in episode 22.
- Sharon briefly namechecks “paranoid reading” and directs anyone seeking further information to D.A. Miller’s THE NOVEL AND THE POLICE and Eve Sedgwick’s “Paranoid Reading and Reparative Reading, or, You’re So Paranoid You Probably Think This Chapter Is About You”.
- In Sharon’s sidebar about writers unafraid of showing their protagonists in a real/human light, she brings up Evie Dunmore’s LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN historical romances.
- Charis brings up THE QUEEN’S THIEF series by Megan Whalen Turner in our discussion of authors who masterfully shift narrative points of view mid-scene.
