Lord Peter Wimsey does his patriotic duty in the Second World War in this, Jill Paton Walsh’s second collaboration with the deceased Dorothy L. Sayers. Whereas in Thrones, Dominations Paton Walsh had several previously unpublished chapters to start off the case, here she has, in effect, created a whole new novel out of hints gleaned from a short story and a few wartime propaganda newspaper columns. Added to the risk of taking on another author’s much loved set of characters is a technical problem for the golden age genre that is Lord Peter Wimsey’s native stamping ground. Is it possible to write a traditional murder story set in wartime when millions are dying, the gravest peril threatens the nation and conventional social practices are crumbling?
Sensibly, Paton Walsh makes the nature of an individual act of killing in the midst of war the moral and plot core of A Presumption of Death. In a country village close to the home of the Wimsey family, a land girl known as wicked Wendy (due to her promiscuous reputation), is found murdered during a practice air raid. With Lord Peter abroad spying, his redoubtable wife, Harriet is asked to aid the short staffed police. Then Lord Peter is declared missing after sending an enigmatic code message apparently designed only for Harriet.
This is war on the home front with a vengeance. Harriet spends much of the
novel striving to connect rumours of German spies to her husband’s disappearance
and crimes of passion. It is one of the triumphs of this satisfying and impeccably
researched tales that it shows the intricate interconnections of the domestic
and the military in time of war. Lord Peter and Harriet continue their love
affair as heads of a remarkable family. Characters from several of Sayers’s
works revisit Talboys, with particular delight shown in Mr. Puffet, the uniquely
loquacious chimney sweep.
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Susan Rowland