Novel: Whose Body?

Overview

Dorothy L. Sayers' Whose Body? introduces Lord Peter Wimsey, an urbane and witty amateur detective whose curiosity and erudition set him apart from the official investigators. The novel opens with a startlingly absurd image, a naked corpse found in a rented city flat, and unfolds as a tightly plotted puzzle that mixes social comedy with procedural detail. Sayers balances light irony and intellectual play with a steadily mounting sense of danger and moral ambiguity.

Opening Incident

A plain, anonymous body discovered in a bath in a respectable part of the city provides the mystery's hook. No obvious injuries, no identification, and an absence of clothing create immediate bafflement for the police and the public. The incongruity of the location and the corpse's state makes the case seem part farce, part locked-room riddle, and invites both official scrutiny and the speculative meddling of a man with a taste for puzzles.

Investigation and Characters

Lord Peter Wimsey moves through the layers of the city with the amused confidence of a dilettante who is also a trained mind. His interventions often outpace the police because he approaches people and documents with lateral intelligence rather than mere procedure. The story brings together a cast of professionals, social climbers, and men whose outward respectability masks precarious secrets. Insurance claims, financial motives, and altered identities complicate the straightforward question of whose body it really is.

Plot Twists and Revelations

The mystery deepens when connections emerge between the corpse and a respectable businessman whose sudden disappearance has been treated as a probable suicide or flight. A crucial clue, a set of footprints and other small physical traces, proves more instructive than the grander statements of witnesses and suspects. Sayers uses minute observation and forensic common sense to overturn assumptions, and the narrative pivots from guessing at identity to untangling motive and opportunity. The resolution hinges on the interplay of social disguise, professional chicanery, and a carefully staged attempt to exploit legal and insurance structures.

Themes and Style

Sayers writes with a relish for intellectual repartee and a keen eye for class distinctions. The novel examines how identity can be manipulated by clothes, documents, and public narrative, and how institutional blind spots, whether in banking, insurance, or policing, create openings for fraud. Witticism and erudition are balanced by rigorous attention to procedure: small physical facts are allowed to speak, and the detective's lateral leaps are grounded in plausible reasoning rather than mere intuition. The tone alternates between urbane comedy and genuine suspense, giving the book both warmth and momentum.

Final Notes

Whose Body? establishes Lord Peter Wimsey as a memorable detective whose aristocratic manner conceals formidable analytical gifts. The novel functions as both an entertaining puzzle and a sharp social sketch of postwar urban life. Its clever construction, forensic detail, and engaging protagonist make it a compelling opening to a series that will deepen the character's moral and intellectual range in later adventures.