Thrones, Dominations

No doubt about it, I am a Dorothy Sayers junkie. In the last six weeks I’ve read as many Lord Peter mysteries as I can lay hands on. And each one leaves me wanting more, especially the stories that include his partner in sleuthing and life, Harriet Vane. Call me a hopeless romantic, but beginning with Strong Poison, I went on to read Gaudy Night and Busman’s Honeymoon. And still I want to read more about this dashing couple!

So I was thrilled to find Thrones, Dominations on paperbackswap.com, and I just finished devouring this last of the Wimsey/Vane mysteries. Actually, the book was not published until 1998, more than thirty years after Sayers’ unexpected death in 1957. She had laid aside the novel sometime between 1936 and 1938 as she focused on other projects, specifically her translation of Dante’s Divine Comedy. But she herself said Lord Peter never really left her. I’m thankful that Jill Paton Walsh picked up Sayers’ mantle and completed the story for those of us who just had to know what happens to Lord and Lady Peter.

The plot is remarkably simple once you discover whodunit, with a believable double hitch to tie all the ends together. More complex are the interactions between the main characters as Walsh develops the bond between newlyweds Peter and Harriet. As usual, Bunter plays a key role in all things involving his master and is happily rewarded with a wife of his own. Knowing this is the final Wimsey mystery, readers will be particularly tickled at the afterword. The authors don’t leave us hanging as to the happy couple’s fate once the war begins; rather, they give us just enough details so that our imaginations can fill in the rest of the story.

My favorite quote from Thrones, Dominations is Lord Peter’s maxim that says, “A person who tells a secret, swearing the recipient to secrecy in turn, is asking of the other person a discretion which he is abrogating himself.” Big words, I know, but it’s a good reminder to avoid gossip and to keep a confidence. And as always, Sayers riddles her prose with references and allusions from the greats of English literature, particularly Shakespeare, Milton, and Donne. Likely that is why I am drawn to her books like dust to a TV screen. I feel like I’m taking a grad course in Brit lit with the turn of each page.