The Nine Tailors

⚖The case for it

The fen country is the achievement: flat marsh, drainage channels, dialect, a church tower standing over all of it, and Sayers writes bells “rioting and exulting high up in the dark tower” “over the flat, white wastes of fen.” The change-ringing is not decoration either, and readers who stay with it say the patience it asks for is repaid. Wimsey is at his most likeable this deep into the series, and Bunter draws his own affection because “he’s wonderfully loyal to Peter.” Dialogue carries the characterisation. The late storm and flood is where the slow build pays, with “a touch of the macabre.”

— the honest librarian

✕The case against

Close to two fifths of the book is change-ringing method, printed diagrams included, which one critic reduced to “an encyclopedia article on campanology.” Readers admit outright that “I tended to skip the combinations for the ringing of the bells,” and plenty never get that far: “couldn’t get past page 130.” The fen geography and drainage digressions add more the case does not need. The village suspects are hard to keep apart through the interrogation chapters. The emotional register stays flat, characters absorbing events without much showing. “Incomprehensible stuff about change ringing.”

— the honest librarian

7h

honest hours

10

sittings