Strong Poison by Dorothy L. Sayers

[meganbmoore]

Having watched the trial of Harriet Vane, an authoress accused of murdering her former lover, Wimsey has become convinced that the woman is innocent, and is thrilled when the murder trial results in a hung jury, requiring another trial a month later. Wimsey decides to prove Harriet’s innocence and interviews her, proposing marriage as he does so.

Comments

[maxineofarc]

I'm not sure about the whole suicide thing. There's one Wimsey book in which the killer turns out to be some upper-class snob, so instead of turning him in, Wimsey leaves him alone with a gun or something so he can Do The Honorable Thing. It still strikes me as ooky.

[meganbmoore]

Well, it was pretty much considered acceptable-and even honorable-to do that(typically after signing a confession or some such), rather than put your family through the humiliation of a trial.

However, recognizing something as acceptable social practice and applying it to your own life are two different things.

[melengro]

That was Walter Penberthy in Bellona, who wasn't a snob so much as somebody who really just had stopped caring one way or another. There's an interesting variant in Murder Must Advertise as well, but I don't want to spoil anything.

[maxineofarc]

Nope, that wasn't the one I was thinking of... gosh, maybe it's more of a theme than I thought! MMA is still my favorite, though it's mostly for the actual office/advertising scenes, which are a hoot.

[tarigwaemir]

Hm, I didn't particularly think that he was becoming unhinged in Strong Poison, but I've definitely had that sense in the other mysteries, so I'm inclined to agree with your intuition. Wimsey does strike me as someone who very delicately maintains his sanity; he's not very stable underneath.

I never really quite understood why Wimsey fell in love with Harriet (other than that she's awesome, which unfortunately doesn't really come through in Strong Poison all that much since she's off-page for most of it), but somehow Sayers convinces me that he is, even if I don't see the reason for it.

[meganbmoore]

It didn't strike me as a suicidal moment so much as a moment where he realized he wasn't as opposed to the idea as he wanted to be. I've thought from the first book that the detectiving was a way of maintaining his sanity.

In this book, I got more of a "smitten" feeling than anything else. He's wowed by her composure throughout, and her staunchly sticking to her beliefs, even if the form they take is extremely unconventional. If there were any indications of Harriet letting his falling for her under those conditions influence her here, I'd probably have problems with the idea of their eventually getting together, but her refusal lays the groundwork for the relationship to be grounded in other things.

[smillaraaq]

And her refusal here really just goes to further establishing her common sense and maturity and self-respect, which all goes to prove in the end that his instincts were spot-on here. If she'd been the sort to say yes here, I don't think his infatuation would have lasted, let alone grown and deepened as it did. If you recall that bit in the Unnatural Death where Uncle Paul Delagardie is voicing his approval of her, the character she showed here is what first won over some of his relatives -- if she'd said yes under these circumstances, I think the Dowager Duchess and Uncle Paul would have been just as dubious of her as his snobbish sister-in-law, albeit for different reasons.

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say he felt like he was coming unhinged here to me -- he was getting frantic enough when things were going badly that it started to approach that territory, but didn't quite cross that line for me. But then again, it may just be that I'm used to thinking of him as unstable enough that I draw the line fairly high...

[meganbmoore]

I don't think he really crossed the line, he just seemed closer to it than usual, and maybe a little more aware of it. But then, Harriet as a character and Peter's mental problems (and, as a natural extension, how those two things work together) as well as the various social actions and problems Sayers approaches are what were used as the main draws (or at least, what I noticed) to get me to read the series, so I'm probably focusing on those things more as I read

[rachelmanija]

Peter has PTSD and is also a bit... over-sensitive? mentally fragile? You see more of this in later books, especially Busman's Honeymoon. I do think his bond with Harriet is based on a very real (albeit one-sided, in this book) sense of them being kindred spirits.

The cover of my copy of Strong Poison depicts arsenic being poured into a raw egg! Way to give the game away!

[meganbmoore]

With Harriet, there's a bit of a sense of his seeing someone for the first time who he sees as an equal in terms of intellect and values, though not in a way that undermines the other people in his life, if that makes sense. I think having him have a mental breakdown in the first book made me keep an eye out for other problems. I get the feeling that he looks for mysteries to keep himself stable sometimes.

That...is a very poorly thought out book cover. Though at least it makes sense. Mine has two people at a rickety table in front of a fireplace. I'd say it was meant to be Peter and Harriet, but the room they're in is clearly part of a well-to-do household...

(And since we can't see faces or even upper bodies, I'm not even sure the other person is male...)

[melengro]

That's not the worst of it.

[smillaraaq]

...

There are so many things wrong with that picture, I wouldn't even know where to begin listing them. Wow. That's just an impressive amount of fail.

[melengro]

Peter has shell-shock and comes to view himself as a murderer himself, worse than those he sends to the gallows since he only does it for his own amusement. Sayers apparently said that he really did put arsenic in Urquhart's gelatin treats (or, at least, may have), because he was lashing out at his own insecurities about what he does by doing something that even he knows is disgusting and underhanded. You see this more in Gaudy Night, where it is revealed that Peter actually thinks of himself as an evil person.

[meganbmoore]

Peter definitely viewed himself as an amoral bastard with the arsenic (were we ever supposed to wonder if he really did that?) he just didn't really care. The reading I get is that he's a detective to keep himself sane, and not having the investigation go his way (especially since he let himself get emotionally invested) was making his problems that much more prominent. (Hence the two pages of his fantasizing about shattering a mirror into tiny pieces, then deciding it wouldn't matter because he could just get a new one, whereas Harriet being executed if he couldn't prove her innocence was an unfixable thing.)

ETA: BTW, while the series has been out for decades and there are certain things that are considered common knowledge, I am trying to stay fairly unspoiled.

[melengro]

It was supposed to be unclear. He tells Parker he didn't really do it, but he's shown that he's not above lying to those he loves. Like Batman, a desire to do some good in the world is all that distinguishes Peter from Freke or Whitaker or Penberthy or Urquhart.

I'm trying not to spoil you! There is a lot of discussion of Peter's morality in Gaudy Night, though.

[meganbmoore]

Uhm...yeah, I mostly read that as his not wanting Gunter to know. The scene with Urquhart read as he was so certain that there was no need to bluff.

[havocthecat]

Ooh! Ooh! I watched the movie version of this when I was a kid.