{"id":15919,"date":"2021-10-26T19:50:10","date_gmt":"2021-10-26T23:50:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=15919"},"modified":"2021-10-26T19:50:10","modified_gmt":"2021-10-26T23:50:10","slug":"the-unpleasantess-at-the-bellona-club-by-dorothy-l-sayers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/?p=15919","title":{"rendered":"‘The Unpleasantess at the Bellona Club,’ by Dorothy L. Sayers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\u201cConsidering the obliging care we take in criminal prosecutions to inform the public at large that two or three grains of arsenic will successfully account for an unpopular individual, however tough, it\u2019s surprising how wasteful people are with their drugs. You can\u2019t teach \u2018em. An office-boy who was as incompetent as the average murderer would be sacked with a kick in the bottom\u2026.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Old General Fentiman,<\/strong> a veteran of the Crimean War, was pretty much a fixture at the Bellona Club, a stodgy gentlemen\u2019s club for veterans in London. On Veterans\u2019 Day, he becomes more a fixture than ever, being found dead in his accustomed wing-chair. Certain peculiarities about the condition of the body make it difficult to determine the exact time of his death.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And that becomes an issue, since, as it turns out, the old man had reconciled with his long-estranged sister that same day, and she had also died, after changing her will. The division of her large estate will now depend on which of them passed away first. Lord Peter Wimsey, himself a member of the club, is asked to investigate \u2013 as discreetly as possible. Lord Peter grows increasingly interested as he asks questions, and then (as he so often does) begins to dread what he\u2019ll learn. He hopes very much the murderer wasn\u2019t his friend George Fentiman, the old man\u2019s grandson, who is very poor and suffers from shell-shock and the occasional fit of uncontrolled rage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That\u2019s the premise of The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club,<\/a><\/em> fourth novel in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. At this point (in my opinion), author Dorothy L. Sayers is coming into her full powers as a detective novelist. Her writing is sharp and amusing, her characters vivid, and the puzzle is a neat one. Also on display are acid social commentary (especially concerning attitudes toward women) and problems of morality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club <\/em>very much, and recommend it highly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cConsidering the obliging care we take in criminal prosecutions to inform the public at large that two or three grains of arsenic will successfully account for an unpopular individual, however tough, it\u2019s surprising how wasteful people are with their drugs. You can\u2019t teach \u2018em. An office-boy who was as incompetent as the average murderer would … Continue reading ‘The Unpleasantess at the Bellona Club,’ by Dorothy L. Sayers<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[7,15],"tags":[3874,1704,3915],"class_list":["post-15919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction","category-reviews","tag-dorothy-l-sayers","tag-lord-peter-wimsey","tag-the-unpleasantness-at-the-bellona-club"],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15919"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15919\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15920,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15919\/revisions\/15920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brandywinebooks.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}