Rating: 
Summary: Well-Written, But Not Very Mysterious
Review: The Nine Tailors is a well-written story; unfortunately the crafting of the mystery has not held up over the years. Many of Sayers' plot devices have become routine, if not clichéd, so it's little wonder modern readers leap to conclusions ahead of Lord Peter Wimsey.The plot revolves around a rural community in England and certain misdeeds past and present. Central to the community is its church, and it is here that Lord Peter spends most of his time, either in the Rectory, the cemetery, or the church building itself. The story is told through the metaphor of "change ringing." If you know nothing of this English tradition it is possible to soldier through - the text does provide some clues - but it's rough going. A website with some particularly helpful information is www.nagcr.org/pamphlet.html. An online Java application that enables you to ring your own bells is www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/kvdoel/bells/bells.html. Googling for "change ringing" will provide additional examples, but these two cover many of the points Sayers includes in the novel. While the mystery is not the most challenging (outside of a cryptogram, which is almost as unsolvable as the code in Have His Carcase), this is still an extremely good novel. Sayers' small church characters are written spot on, and her inclusion of church and governmental politics feels authentic. Other Lord Peter novels have held up better over time; that this one hasn't serves as a testimony to the effect Dorothy Sayers has had on the mystery writers that came after her. I enjoyed this book and heartily recommend it with the minor caveats listed above.
Rating: 
Summary: One of her best
Review: This is certainly one of Sayers' best novels. The plot is detailed and realistic and the characters equally so. Lord Peter is at his most charming and observant. The book centers around a church and it's bell ringers. The chapters begin with quotes about bell ringing, which give it a wonderful flavor. If you only read one Lord Peter novel, make it this one!
Rating:
Summary: One of her best
Review: This is certainly one of Sayers' best novels. The plot is detailed and realistic and the characters equally so. Lord Peter is at his most charming and observant. The book centers around a church and it's bell ringers. The chapters begin with quotes about bell ringing, which give it a wonderful flavor. If you only read one Lord Peter novel, make it this one!
Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: This novel, Dorothy L. Sayers' best-known, is, without doubt, one of her best-if not the best. Sayers takes the customary English village, and makes something new of it, by setting it in the Fen country, and by giving to it a church, which, as the well-drawn rector describes, "East Anglia is famous for the size and splendour of its parish churches. Still, we flatter ourselves we are almost unique, even in this part of the world." The church services show great feeling and power, and neatly tie in with the theme of religion. The church possesses bells, the book being best-known for the bell-ringing, described in such powerfully beautiful descriptions as: "Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvres of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells-little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul." The bells are also eerily threatening-"Bells are like cats and mirrors-they're always queer, and it doesn't do to think too much about them."-which is fitting, as the plot hinges on bells: both an ingenious cryptogram (again, to quote the rector, "I should never have thought of the possibility that one might make a cipher out of change-ringing. Most ingenious."), and an ingenious murder method. The whodunit aspect of the story is not neglected; for once, it is a genuine problem. The body is buried in a grave, and involves a complicated problem of identity, and an unknown method. The victim, as Wimsey describes, is "a perfect nuisance, dead or alive, and whoever killed him was a public benefactor. I wish I'd killed him myself." Wimsey is engaging here, and not the parody of Bertie Wooster he sometimes is-he is a human being, without being the equally obnoxious creature found in Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon. The detection is excellent, and, as was to be the trend in nearly every detective story following (especially Nicholas Blake's), the detective "felt depressed. So far as he could see, his interference had done no good to anybody and only made extra trouble. It was a thousand pities that the body of Deacon had ever come to light at all. Nobody wanted it." These tie in with the burden of guilt and innocence, redemption and repentance. Finally, the book comes to its powerful climax in a flooded village, "with an aching and intolerable melancholy, like the noise of the bells of a drowned city pushing up through the overwhelming sea." This is not a detective story-this is, if anything, a novel.
Rating:
Summary: Review
Review: This novel, Dorothy L. Sayers' best-known, is, without doubt, one of her best-if not the best. Sayers takes the customary English village, and makes something new of it, by setting it in the Fen country, and by giving to it a church, which, as the well-drawn rector describes, "East Anglia is famous for the size and splendour of its parish churches. Still, we flatter ourselves we are almost unique, even in this part of the world." The church services show great feeling and power, and neatly tie in with the theme of religion. The church possesses bells, the book being best-known for the bell-ringing, described in such powerfully beautiful descriptions as: "Out over the flat, white wastes of fen, over the spear-straight, steel-dark dykes and the wind-bent, groaning poplar trees, bursting from the snow-choked louvres of the belfry, whirled away southward and westward in gusty blasts of clamour to the sleeping counties went the music of the bells-little Gaude, silver Sabaoth, strong John and Jericho, glad Jubilee, sweet Dimity and old Batty Thomas, with great Tailor Paul bawling and striding like a giant in the midst of them. Up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the shadows of the ringers upon the walls, up and down went the scarlet sallies flickering roofwards and floorwards, and up and down, hunting in their courses, went the bells of Fenchurch St. Paul." The bells are also eerily threatening-"Bells are like cats and mirrors-they're always queer, and it doesn't do to think too much about them."-which is fitting, as the plot hinges on bells: both an ingenious cryptogram (again, to quote the rector, "I should never have thought of the possibility that one might make a cipher out of change-ringing. Most ingenious."), and an ingenious murder method. The whodunit aspect of the story is not neglected; for once, it is a genuine problem. The body is buried in a grave, and involves a complicated problem of identity, and an unknown method. The victim, as Wimsey describes, is "a perfect nuisance, dead or alive, and whoever killed him was a public benefactor. I wish I'd killed him myself." Wimsey is engaging here, and not the parody of Bertie Wooster he sometimes is-he is a human being, without being the equally obnoxious creature found in Gaudy Night and Busman's Honeymoon. The detection is excellent, and, as was to be the trend in nearly every detective story following (especially Nicholas Blake's), the detective "felt depressed. So far as he could see, his interference had done no good to anybody and only made extra trouble. It was a thousand pities that the body of Deacon had ever come to light at all. Nobody wanted it." These tie in with the burden of guilt and innocence, redemption and repentance. Finally, the book comes to its powerful climax in a flooded village, "with an aching and intolerable melancholy, like the noise of the bells of a drowned city pushing up through the overwhelming sea." This is not a detective story-this is, if anything, a novel.
Rating:
Summary: A fantastic read over and over again!
Review: This was my introduction to Lord Peter, and now I can't get enough! Totally wonderful and beautifully intricate! I love reading this book over and over again.
Rating:
Summary: Perhaps the finest of Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries.
Review: Unlike some of her Lord Peter mysteries, this novel can be read by itself, and it is a delight. About a murder done in an old church in the English countryside, you will learn more about the ringing of church bells than you thought possible. Lord Peter is at the top of his form, literate, intelligent, and a thinker beyond being just a mystery novel detective. None of the characters are one or two dimensional, and each of them is developed fully and delightfully. When it comes to mystery fiction, you can't do much better than Sayers...which may be one reason her novels appeared on PBS' MASTERPIECE THEATRE rather than MYSTERY! They are indeed, masterpieces
Rating:
Summary: A classic period piece, and a spiritual meditation
Review: When I first read this book, I was in high school. Having encountered the phenomenon of change ringing in Groves Dictionary of Music and read that "The Nine Tailors" was a novel which involved it, I assumed at first that something so old and specialized would be long out of print and unavailable. Imagine my delight when I found that the local college library had it! Presumably unable to borrow it, I felt very daring smuggling it into the 24-hour reading room and leaving it on a coat rack so that I could read it even when the library was closed. It was exciting again to discover later that it was actually in print and I could buy it for myself. This I have had to do several times over the years, because my copies keep disappearing-- probably loaned to friends. The continued availability of a novel on such an esoteric subject can only be testimony to the "the worth of the work" (one of Sayers's telling phrases in another of her books). It is, indeed, not as readily available as some of her other Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries. I have read most of them, believe that this is the best, and wouldn't be surprised if the author agreed. Yet many times I have noticed bookstores having several of the others in stock, but not The Nine Tailors. This has to be a sad commentary on the reluctance of many readers, even of mysteries, to venture into a quaint, abstruse subculture foreign to their own environments. Yet, happily, the real connoisseurs of the genre, who knowingly demand it even on special order, are numerous enough to keep it in print. This is the kind of book to take up cozily by the fire, or while snuggled unter the quilts, in wintertime as the snow falls and the wind whistles outside; for such is the weather on a bleak New Year's Eve in its first scenes. The circumstances are important-- so intricately crafted is the novel that almost everything is important. Lord Peter and his valet, driving through the fens between the world wars, meet with an automobile mishap compelling them to venture forth on foot. Soon they encounter the vicar and other salt-of-the-earth folk in the nearest village, and circumstances draw them quickly into the life of this close-knit community of good, solid, honest people unanimous in the love of the mighty, exquisite old church which is their heritage from a long-dissolved medieval monastery. Places like this really used to exist frequently in rural England. To read of them now, when they are so rare, is to meditate on what we have lost as time marches on. Although I doubt that Sayers was writing in this mode, the nostalgia which the book provokes in a reader today can be very poignant. But, beyond nostalgia, we can imbibe a gentle, abiding "wonder and delight" in these humble villagers' experience of their faith, and what it has wrought among them, which badly needs to be recovered in much of Christendom today. Fictional entertainment though it may be, if this book inspires and helps readers more than half a century later to recover this in their own lives, we can be certain that the author would be highly gratified. I would venture to guess, in fact, that this was her larger purpose, devout Anglo-Catholic that she was, in writing it.
Rating:
Summary: Was I surprised!
Review: When I picked up this book I expected a story with nine people holding a needle and thread or seeing how many flies they could swat with one blow. You can really tell this is Dorothy Leigh Sayers' style. A lot of England, an interesting Wimsey and a good mystery that does not overwhelm the other elements. When I get time I want to see if the books she quoted from exist. I am not suggesting reading the books out of order, however different DLS books emphasize the mystery first others England first. A book that has the same balance as The Nine Tailors is [Busman's Honeymoon ISBN: 0061043516] All in all I found this book a-pealing.
Rating:
Summary: Sayers - The Best Female Author of Mystery
Review: When you read Nine Tailors you will realise why McGallen Awarded her a special award for this book voting it as the best mystery of all time more than 50 years after its first release. It is by far the most thought provoking book I have read. One thing you will always know up front when you buy a DL Sayers novel is that it WILL be a good book. For consistency in good mystery writing is what makes her the best Female Mystery writer of ALL TIME.
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