90-year-old General Fentiman was definitely dead, but no one knew exactly when he had died — and the time of death was the determining factor in a half-million-pound inheritance.Lord Peter Wimsey would need every bit of his amazing skills to unravel the mysteries of why the General's lapel was without a red poppy on Armistice Day, how the club's telephone was fixed without a repairman, and, most puzzling of all, why the great man's knee swung freely when the rest of him was stiff with rigor mortis.

Nine teller strokes from the belfry of an ancient country church toll the death of an unknown man and call the famous Lord Peter Wimsey to one of his most brilliant cases, set in the atmosphere of a quiet parish in the strange, flat, fen-country of East Anglia

This second volume of Dorothy L. Sayers covers the seven years in which the greatest detective novelist of the golden age—and the creator of Lord Peter Wimsey—turns away from mystery writing to become a playwright and, in turn, a controversial figure. Accused on the one hand of blasphemy, acclaimed on the other as one of the most influential lay theologians of her time, she found herself drawn into a vast network of correspondence, dealing with a wide range of social concerns. These, after all, are the years of World War II, of air-raids, threats of invasion, rationing, lack of domestic help, congested travel, and blackouts. But there was no blackout in the creativity of Dorothy L. Sayers; in fact, this is the peak period f her creative endeavors: seventeen plays, several books, innumerable articles and talks—and hundreds of letters. The letters reveal the context of her published words and send the reader back to them with new understanding....

Amusing and absolutely appalling things happen on the way to the gallows when murder meets Lord Peter Wimsey and the delightful working-class sleuth Montague Egg. This sumptuous feast of criminal doings and undoings includes a vintage double identity and a horrid incident of feline assassination that will tease the minds of cat-lovers everywhere. Not to be missed are "The Incredible Elopement of Peter Wimsey" (with a lovely American woman-turned-zombie) and eight more puzzlers penned in inimitable style by the mistress of murder. 12 short stories, 4 including Lord Peter

Lord Peter Wimsey could imagine the artist stepping back, the stagger, the fall, down to where the pointed rocks grinned like teeth. But was it an accident? Or murder? Six people did not regret Campbell's death… five were red herrings. Set in the unusual background of an artists' colony in Galloway, in the south of Scotland, the book is one of the best of Dorothy Sayers' murder-mystery novels which made her the leading writer in the detective fiction field.