Comment

Jan 31, 2018sdbecque rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
So honestly, I needed a book for the "read a book published from 1900-1950" for the Book Riot Read Harder 2017 challenge, and I was looking at some list for suggestions and saw this one listed. I've read one other Dorothy Sayers book (Whose Body?) and I remember not really caring for it. But everything suggested this was pretty well a stand-alone mystery so I decided to go for it knowing very little about it. Including apparently, what the name referred to. I thought there were going to be nine men darning suits (after all Whimsey is a bit of a fancy-man, right?). Imagine my surprise when the novel opens with a long passage on bell playing in a small English town. Ohhh...the bells are the tailors... Anyway, once the murder got underway it was a lot of fun, and I'd really recommend it. Like a lot of the Agatha Christie murders I've read, the list of potential suspects is pretty insular and the crime has to be solved by wits and questioning without a whole lot of gadgetry. Critical information for crime solving includes which sermon the rector preached on which days, the schedule of meals, and the health of various animals. This, I think, is also a great book to read toward the end of the year near Christmas/New Year's, since so much of the action takes place then.