The Attenbury Emeralds: A Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane Mystery

By Jill Paton Walsh

In 1936, Dorothy L. Sayers abandoned the last Lord Peter Wimsey detective story. Sixty years later, a brown paper parcel containing a copy of the manuscript was discovered in her agent's safe in London, and award-winning novelist Jill Paton Walsh was commissioned to complete it. The result of the pairing of Dorothy L. Sayers with Walsh was the international bestseller Thrones, Dominations.

Now, following A Presumption of Death, set during World War II, comes a new Sayers-inspired mystery featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, revisiting his very first case. . . . It was 1921 when Lord Peter Wimsey first encountered the Attenbury Emeralds. The recovery of the gems in Lord Attenbury's dazzling heirloom collection made headlines—and launched a shell-shocked young aristocrat on his career as a detective.

Thirty years later, a happily married Lord Peter has just shared the secrets of that mystery with his wife, the detective novelist Harriet Vane. Suddenly, the new Lord Attenbury—grandson of Lord Peter's first client—seeks his help to prove who owns the emeralds. As Harriet and Peter contemplate the changes that the war has wrought on English society—and Peter, who always cherished the liberties of a younger son, faces the unwanted prospect of ending up the Duke of Denver after all—Jill Paton Walsh brings us a masterful new chapter in the annals of one of the greatest detectives of all time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Macmillan Publishers
• Release date: Jan 4, 2011
• ISBN: 9781429918565

Jill Paton Walsh

Jill Paton Walsh (1937-2020) was an award-winning author of many books for children, young adults, and adults including The Green Book, A Parcel of Patterns, the Booker Prize shortlisted Knowledge of Angels, and the Whitbread Prize winner The Emperor’s Winding Sheet. She completed Dorothy L. Sayers’ unfinished Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane mystery manuscript, the international bestseller Thrones, Dominations, and continued Sayers’ series with A Presumption of Death, The Attenbury Emeralds, and The Late Scholar. In 1996, Walsh was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for services to literature.

Book preview

1

‘Peter?’ said Lady Peter Wimsey to her lord. ‘What were the Attenbury emeralds?’

Lord Peter Wimsey lowered The Times, and contemplated his wife across the breakfast table.

‘Socking great jewels,’ he said. ‘Enormous hereditary baubles of incommensurable value. Not to everyone’s liking. Why do you ask?’

‘Your name is mentioned in connection with them, in this piece I’m reading about Lord Attenbury.’

‘Old chap died last week. That was my first case.’

‘I didn’t know you read obituaries, Peter. You must be getting old.’

‘Not at all. I am merely lining us up for the best that is yet to be. But in fact it is our Bunter who actually peruses the newsprint for the dear departed. He brings me the pages on anyone he thinks I should know about. Not knowing who is dead leaves one mortally out of touch.’

‘You are sixty, Peter. What is so terrible about that? By the way, I thought your first case was the Attenbury diamonds.’

‘The emeralds came before the diamonds. Attenbury had a positive treasury of nice jewels. The emeralds were very fine – Mughal or something. When they went missing there was uproar.’

‘When was this?’

‘Before the flood: 1921.’

‘Talking of floods, it’s pouring outside,’ said Harriet, looking at the rainwashed panes of the breakfast-room windows. ‘I shan’t be walking to the London Library unless it leaves off. Tell me about these socking great baubles.’

‘Haven’t I told you about them already, in all the long years of talk we have had together?’

‘I don’t believe so. Have you time to tell me now?’

‘I talk far too much already. You shouldn’t encourage me, Harriet.’

‘Shouldn’t I? I thought encouragement was part of the help and comfort that the one ought to have of the other.’

‘Does help and comfort extend to collusion in each other’s vices?’

‘You needn’t tell me if you don’t want to,’ said Harriet to this, regarding it as a deliberate red herring.

‘Oh, naturally I want to. Rather fun, recounting one’s triumphs to an admiring audience. It’s a very long story, but I shall fortify myself with the thought that you asked for it.’

‘I did. But I didn’t contract to be admiring. That depends on the tale.’

‘I have been warned. It’s undoubtedly a problem with being married to a detective story writer that one runs the gauntlet of literary criticism when giving an account of oneself. And the most germane question is: is Bunter busy? Because I think explaining all this to you might entail considerable assistance from him.’

‘When is Bunter not busy? This morning he intends, I believe, to devote himself to dusting books.’

Lord Peter folded his copy of The Times, and laid it on the table. ‘A man may dust books while listening, or while talking. We shall join him in the library.’

‘Bunter, where do I start on all this?’ Peter asked, once the project was explained, he and Harriet were settled in deep armchairs either side of the fire, and Bunter was on the library steps, at a remove both horizontally and vertically, but within comfortable earshot.

‘You might need to explain, my lord, that the occasion in question was your first foray into polite society after the war.’

‘Oh, quite, Bunter. Not fair at all to expect you to describe my pitiful state to Harriet. Well, Harriet, you see…’

To Harriet’s amazement, Peter’s voice shifted register, and a sombre expression clouded his face.

‘Peter, if this distresses you, don’t. Skip the hard bit.’

Peter recovered himself and continued. ‘You know, of course, that I had a sort of nervous collapse after the war. I went home to Bredon Hall, and cowered in my bedroom and wouldn’t come out. Mother was distraught. Then Bunter showed up, and got me out of it. He drew the curtains, and carried in breakfast, and found the flat in Piccadilly, and got me down there to set me up as a man about town. Everything tickety-boo. I’m sure Mother will have told you all that long since, even if I haven’t. Only as you know all too well, it wasn’t entirely over. I have had relapses. Back then I couldn’t relapse exactly, because I hadn’t really recovered. I felt like a lot of broken glass in a parcel. Must’ve been hellish for Bunter.’

‘I seem to remember your mother telling me some story about Bunter overcome with emotion because you had sent away the damned eggs and demanded sausages. Rather incredible, really, but I always believe a dowager duchess.’

‘Expound, Bunter,’ said Peter.

‘The difficulty about breakfasts, my lady, was that it entailed giving orders. And his lordship in a nervous state associated giving orders with the immediate death of those who obeyed them. The real responsibility for the orders belonged to the generals who made the battle plans, and in the ranks we all knew that very well. But just the same it fell to the young men who were our immediate captains to give us the orders to our faces. And it was they who saw the consequences in blood and guts. All too often they shared the fate of their men. We didn’t blame them. But his lordship was among those who blamed themselves.’

‘That really must have made him difficult to work for,’ said Harriet.

‘It was a challenge, certainly, my lady,’ admitted Bunter, blowing gently on the top of the book in his hand to dislodge a miniature cloud of dust.

‘But by the time I knew him he had got over it,’ continued Harriet. ‘I don’t remember seeing him having any difficulty in giving you orders in recent years.’

Bunter replaced the book in the run, turned round and sat down atop the library steps. ‘But back in 1921 his lordship was very shaky, my lady. We had established a gentle routine for life in town – morning rides in Rotten Row, a few concerts, haunting the book auctions, that sort of thing. And at any moment when boredom or anxiety threatened we went suddenly abroad. Travel is very soothing to a nervous temperament. But his lordship had not resumed the sort of life in society that a man of his rank was expected to lead. He couldn’t stand even the rumble of the trains on the Underground Railway, because it evoked the sound of artillery, so we felt it would be better not to attend any shooting parties. I had been hoping for some time that a suitable house-party would occur, at which we could, so to speak, try the temperature of the water.’

‘What an extraordinary metaphor, Bunter!’ said Lord Peter. ‘The temperature of the water at a house-party is always lukewarm, by the time it has been carried upstairs by a hard-pressed servant and left outside the bedroom door in an enamel jug.’

‘Begging your pardon, my lord, but I always saw to your hot water myself, and I do not recall any complaints about it at the time.’

‘Heavens, Bunter, indeed not! I must be remembering occasions before you entered my service. That vanished world my brother and all seniors talk so fondly about. When wealth and empire were in unchallenged glory, and to save which my generation were sent to die wholesale in the mud of Flanders. I wasn’t the only one,’ he added, ‘to find the peace hard to get used to.’

‘That’s an odd way of putting it, Peter,’ said Harriet, contemplating her husband with a thoughtful expression. ‘I can see that horrible flashbacks to the trenches might have undermined you. Might have haunted you. But the peace itself?’

‘The peace meant coming home,’ Peter said, ‘finding oneself mixing with those who had stayed at home all along. Listening to old gentlemen at the club, who had waved the flag as eagerly as anyone when their own prosperity was in danger, complaining once the danger was past about ex-servicemen who according to them thought far too much of themselves and what they had done. Reading in the press about unemployment and poverty facing returning soldiers, and employers grumbling about being asked to have a mere 5 per cent of their workforce recruited from ex-servicemen.’

Harriet said, ‘I remember a visit to London when there was a man on crutches selling matches in the street. My mother gave me a penny, and said, Run across and give this to the soldier, Harry, but don’t take his matches. I shook my head when he offered me the matches, and he smiled. My mother said when I went back to her side, They’re not allowed to beg, but they are allowed to sell things. I remember that very clearly, but I’m afraid most of it passed me by.’

‘You were just a girl, after all,’ said Lord Peter, smiling at his wife, ‘and a swot, I imagine. What were you doing in 1921?’

‘Head down over my books preparing for Oxford entrance exams,’ said Harriet. ‘I think, you know, that it’s just as well I didn’t meet you then, Peter.’

‘You’d have been a breath of fresh air compared to the girls I did meet. And you never know, you might have liked me. Wasn’t it my frivolity that put you off for years? I hadn’t yet got into the way of frivolity so much then.’

‘Is that true, Bunter?’ asked Harriet, affecting doubt.

‘His lordship never perpetrates falsehoods, my lady,’ said Bunter, straight-faced.

He descended the library steps, moved them one bay along, and gave his attention to the next column of books.

‘Bunter, do get down from that thing, and face forward somewhere. Come and sit down and tell Harriet properly about those lost years.’

‘Yes, my lord,’ said Bunter stiffly, doing as he was asked.

‘Well, come along then, your most excellent opinion, if you please.’

When Bunter hesitated, Harriet said gently, ‘How did you find the peace, Bunter?’

‘It was very easy for me, my lady. I had escaped serious injury. I had a job for the asking, and it was a well-paid position with all found. Many of those I had served with, especially the seriously injured, came home to a cold welcome, and were soon forgotten. People turned away from mention of the war as from talk of a plague. His lordship’s sort of people threw themselves into pleasure-seeking and fun. My sort had longer memories.’

‘The awful fact was,’ Peter put in, ‘that all that suffering and death had produced a world that was just the same as before. It wasn’t any safer; it wasn’t any fairer; there were no greater liberties or chances of happiness for civilised mankind.’

‘Working men were beginning to toy with Bolshevism,’ said Bunter. ‘And it was hard to blame them.’

‘The very same people,’ Peter added, ‘who were refusing to employ a one-armed soldier, or who were trying to drive down miners’ wages, were horrified at a rise of Bolshevism, mostly because of the massacre of the Romanovs. Well, because the Russian royals were disappeared, supposed dead.’

‘I remember Richard King in the Tatler,’ said Bunter, ‘opining that the mass of men will gladly sacrifice themselves for the realisation of a better world, but would never again be willing to sacrifice themselves merely to preserve the old one.’

At which both his employers objected at once.

Peter: ‘Even you, Bunter, cannot expect me to believe that you have remembered that verbatim for something like thirty years!’

Harriet: ‘In the Tatler, Bunter? Surely not!’

Bunter met both sallies with aplomb. ‘It happens, my lord, my lady, that I began to keep a commonplace book at that time. I was so struck by those words of Richard King that I cut out his article, and pasted it on to the first page of the book. My eye lights on it again every time I open it to make a new insertion.’

‘Worsted again,’ said Peter. ‘I should have realised long ago that it is useless to argue with you.’

Bunter acknowledged this apology with a brief nod of the head.

‘Uneasy times,’ said Peter. ‘There was a coal strike that spring – quickly over, but with hindsight it was rumbling towards the General Strike. And what Bunter calls my sort of people were carrying on like the Edwardians become hysterical. Dancing, dressing up, getting presented at court, throwing huge parties, racing, gambling, prancing off to the French Riviera or Chamonix, chasing foxes, shooting grouse…I was supposed to be a good sport, and join in. It seemed meaningless to me. I found my station in life was dust and ashes in my mouth. I might have been all right with a decently useful job.’

‘Couldn’t you just have gone and got one?’ asked Harriet.

‘Of course I could. I was just too callow to think of it. I think I went for months with no better purpose in life than trying not to disappoint Bunter. If he made breakfast, I ought to eat breakfast. If he thought I needed a new suit, I ought to order one, and so forth. If he kept showing me catalogues of book sales, I ought to collect books.’

‘If I may say so, my lord,’ said Bunter, ‘I believe the book-collecting was entirely your idea. I have been your lordship’s apprentice in anything to do with books.’

Harriet looked from one of them to the other. They were both struggling to conceal emotion. Whatever had she stirred up? Should she have guessed that the emeralds would open old wounds in this way?

‘You see, Harriet,’ said Peter, ‘that if my life was a stream of meaningless trivia, I was affronting Bunter. He was far too good a fellow to be a servant to a witless fool. I could just about manage to do what Bunter appeared to expect I might do, but I knew, really, that I was frittering both of us.’

‘I shouldn’t think Bunter saw it that way,’ said Harriet. ‘I imagine he saw you as a decently useful job. I hope we aren’t making you uncomfortable, Bunter,’ she added.

‘Not unusually so, my lady,’ said Bunter gravely.

His remark brought a brief blush to Harriet’s face. All three of them laughed.

‘So as Bunter was saying,’ Peter continued, ‘he and my mother between them – that’s right, isn’t it, Bunter? – were on the lookout for a suitable occasion, a kind of coming-out for me, when I might show my face in public again, and try to behave normally. And they chose the Abcock engagement party. A party to present Lady Charlotte Abcock’s fiancé to Lord Attenbury’s circle.’

‘Abcock is the Attenbury family surname, my lady,’ said Bunter helpfully.

‘Thank you, Bunter,’ said Harriet. She thought wryly that she would find all that easier to remember and understand if she had ever been able to take it entirely seriously.

‘It seemed just the right sort of occasion,’ said Bunter, ‘with only one drawback. It wasn’t very large, but on the other hand large enough to seem like being in society. The Earl of Attenbury’s family were long-established friends of the Wimsey family. The event was not in the shooting season. His lordship had been at school with Lord Abcock – Roland, the Attenburys’ eldest son – and had known the eldest daughter as a girl. Fennybrook Hall, the Attenburys’ seat in Suffolk, was not a taxing journey from London, as I supposed. I thought we would go by train, my lady. I had not anticipated that his lordship would insist on driving us, a circumstance that certainly made the journey memorable.’

‘That I can well imagine,’ said Harriet sympathetically. ‘What was the drawback?’

‘Oh, just that brother Gerald, and my dear sister-in-law Helen were among the guests,’ said Peter.

‘1921,’ said Harriet thoughtfully. ‘Surely Helen was not yet the full-blown Helen of more recent years?’

‘Much the same, if a little less strident,’ said Peter.

‘In the event, my lady, another drawback emerged when we had already accepted the invitation, and it was too late to withdraw,’ said Bunter. ‘The family decided to get their jewels out of the bank for the occasion, and the press became aware of it. There was a great deal of most unwelcome publicity about it, and it seemed likely that the party would be besieged.’

‘I have never been able to see the point of jewels so valuable that they have to be kept in the bank,’ said Harriet.

‘The thing about such possessions is that their owners don’t really regard them as personal property,’ said Peter. ‘They are part of the patrimony of the eldest sons. They go with the title, like the estates and family seat. Unlike the estates and the family seat, however, they can be entailed to go down the line of daughters. They are a family responsibility. Nobody wants to be the one during whose tenure they were lost, stolen or strayed.’

‘The Attenbury emeralds were, or rather are, in the strict sense heirlooms, my lady,’ said Bunter.

‘Yes,’ said Harriet doubtfully, ‘but it must greatly limit the enjoyment they can give.’

‘You married me wearing Delagardie earrings,’ said Peter mildly.

‘That was to please your mother,’ Harriet said. ‘She had been so kind to me; and she thought they would look good with that golden dress.’

‘She was right,’ said Peter, smiling.

‘My mind was on other things that day,’ said Harriet, ‘but I wouldn’t normally like to wear something that wasn’t really mine, but only on loan from history. It would be like going to the ball in a hired gown.’ Not for the first time she felt thankful that Peter was the younger son. She glanced at the blazing ruby in her engagement ring. That was completely hers.

‘On the other hand,’ said Peter, smiling – he must have seen that glance – ‘it lends occasions some éclat when everyone puts on their glory only now and then.’

‘Many families solve the difficulty by having paste replicas made for less august occasions,’ said Bunter.

‘And the Attenburys had done exactly that,’ said Peter, ‘which added to the complexity. But, Bunter, we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Time we took the King of Heart’s advice: begin at the beginning, go on till you get to the end and then stop. That last is the most difficult, isn’t it, Harriet?’

‘Rough hewing our ends being easier than divinely shaping them, you mean? We seem to me to be having difficulty beginning at all,’ she said.

2

The difficulty beginning at all was greatly increased by the unexpected arrival of the two eldest sons of the house, Bredon Wimsey and Peter Bunter. When Mervyn and Hope Bunter had christened their son ‘Peter’ it had been a conscious tribute, but now that the boy was growing up in the Wimsey household, in a world where distinctions between master and man were increasingly precarious, it had become a source of confusion, and young Peter was known as ‘PB’.

‘To what,’ demanded Peter of these two, ‘do we owe the honour of your presence in term-time?’

‘Research, Father,’ said Bredon. ‘We were sent to sit in the spectators’ gallery in the House of Commons. To make notes, of course. And we do have permission to stay overnight at home. If it’s all right by you, of course.’

‘Hmm,’ said Peter.

‘Well, the food is pretty foul at school,’ said his son hopefully.

‘Very well then. It’s a pleasure to see you both. You may report on your impression of the Mother of Parliaments when we sit down to dinner together. Run along now and find your younger brothers and beat them at ping-pong or something.’

‘It’s easy to beat Paul,’ offered Bredon, ‘but little Roger is a demon player.’

‘Do your best,’ said Peter. ‘And off you go. The grown-ups are story-telling.’

‘Thanks,’ said Bredon.

But they stood in the doorway waiting.

‘You too, PB,’ said Bunter.

‘Oh, thanks, Dad,’ said PB over his shoulder as the two disappeared down the stairs.

Harriet said, ‘I really like to see what good friends those two are.’

‘Well, effectively they have grown up together,’ said Peter.

‘Does that always make friendship?’ asked Harriet. ‘I don’t know. There’s such a lot an only child doesn’t know.’

‘Hope and I are very grateful, my lord, my lady,’ said Bunter, ‘that our only son has had the companionship of your sons.’

The three of them hesitated on the brink of the treacherous social gulf that yawned between them.

‘You know that we love him like one of our own,’ said Harriet, full of daring.

‘As long as it doesn’t give him ideas,’ said Bunter gruffly.

‘I hope it does,’ said Peter. ‘I hope it does. And I hope his ideas make my sons buck up. It’s a changing world now. But we were in the past, weren’t we? Where were we?’

‘You were arriving at the Abcock girl’s engagement party,’ prompted Harriet. ‘Can you pick up the thread?’

‘We arrived safely, my lady,’ said Bunter, rising to the challenge. ‘His lordship was given a room at the corner of the house, and I was assigned a place below stairs.’

‘Do we have to explain to Harriet the layout of the bedrooms?’ Peter asked.

‘Perhaps we should first describe the family and the other guests,’ said Bunter.

‘Righty-ho. Well, Lord Attenbury was a traditional old stick. About fifty. Honourable to a fault. A bear of very little brain. But Lady Attenbury was cut from another cloth altogether. A graceful and intelligent woman. Kept her brains strictly undercover, brains not being the done thing, you know, but never missed a thing. She was a great friend of my mother’s, by the way.’

‘Was your mother at the party?’ asked Harriet.

‘No. She had been invited and declined, all for my sake. One can hardly demonstrate one’s independence while hanging on to Mother, after all. The Attenburys had four children. First a son: Roland, Lord Abcock, remarkably obtuse sort of fellow, but a good sport. I knew Roland well at school: he used to fag for me. Often had to do his prep for him. You could tease him all day long, and he never noticed. He had married his childhood sweetheart, but she wasn’t present. Looking after her sick mother in Wiltshire or something. Then a daughter, Charlotte, the one just recently engaged. Knew nothing much about her really, although I had seen her now and then before the war, when she was much younger. Then a second daughter, the joker in the pack, Diana, who was at finishing school in Switzerland on the occasion of this party. We’ll come to her later. Lastly, quite a bit younger, an after-thought, Ottalie. Sweet little girl in white pinafores with a playmate in residence. That’s the family. Now the guests. Well, I’m blowed if I can remember most of them, but the ones that matter were the ones who had been given rooms in the main wing. Help me out here,

Reviews for The Attenbury Emeralds

[judithproctor · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This book really disappointed me. I was looking forward to the prequel of how the Attenbury emerald mystery was solved, but the writing style of the first half with it's first person recollection of events in the past told by Wimsey and Bunter felt clumsy and not like a Sayers novel. When events moved to the present and later events befalling the emeralds, the style felt more familiar, though I did notice that the characters tended to quote from books that would probably still be familiar to modern readers (eg. Pooh bear and Alice in Wonderland) rather than Sayers wider range. (you may regard this as a good or bad thing depending on your preference)The solution to the plot relied on a horrendous number of coincidences, which I guess I can't really complain about given that Sayers was almost as guilty in Clouds of Witness....However, I'm not currently inspired to try any more of Paton Walsh's Wimsey novels.

[catherinestead · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

It's not Sayers - Peter and Harriet are a bit diluted and the story's not as crisp - but it's not bad.

[mathmaverick-1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Excellent! If you liked the original novels by Sayers, you will enjoy this one! I plan on reading them all!

[jennybeast · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

What an absolute delight, with a wonderful reader this time around. I’m re-experiencing these book in the waning days of pandemic isolation and they are such a comfort to me. This one — ah, if you want to read Dorothy Sayers, it probably won’t be all you desire, but if you want to enjoy Jill Paton Walsh coming into her own, this will satisfy you absolutely. I don’t mind that Peter and Harriet should evolve as they age, and I think Walsh has done a tremendous job transitioning over the last 3 books from material that remained to original thought. I’ve no doubt this is still heavily based on Sayers work, but I also think Walsh’s voice is coming to the fore. Lovely.

[cygnet81 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Not as good as the real thing but well written.

[justchris_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

The Attenbury Emeralds was better than A Presumption of Death--I made it through the book without wanting to hurl (either the book or my breakfast). And the malefactor wasn't painfully obvious. But Paton Walsh is no Sayers, and it pains me to see her try. I wonder how much is because Paton Walsh is accustomed to writing for modern readers and thus feels the need to carefully hold the reader's hand, lay out the crumb trail without any breaks or jumps for the reader to follow, and generally has low expectations of the audience. She does an awful lot of a viewpoint character explicitly interpreting another character's actions/reactions/body language, etc. Not so many literary allusions liberally peppering Peter's dialogue either. The Dowager Duchess does not sparkle and confound herself in full-paragraph periods of malapropisms and charming stream of consciousness.The social commentary that takes up much of the story and drips from *every* character's mouth (and all pointed in the same direction! as if they're a hive mind!) also is most unlike Sayers. Peter's PTSD symptoms from past and current events are referenced pretty casually and openly by many characters, and discussed very directly in group settings, again very uncharacteristic for Peter and Harriet and Sayers' approach to the topic. None of the key characters really sound or act like themselves. I also am not okay with the plot twists thrown in to seriously alter the nature of the characters and their place in the world. It goes beyond taking liberties into distorting the characters beyond all recognition, bombing canon to kingdom come. Did not like. Do not approve. Never reading another of her Lord Peter Wimsey attempts. Reread the originals foreva!Notice I have yet to mention the mystery? These are mystery books, right? Kinda sorta. The mystery is pretty secondhand, lukewarm, largely off-screen. It doesn't really engage the reader, and takes a backseat to both the social commentary and the transmogrification of the characters' lives. And in the closing pages, somehow Harriet has more insight into the human heart than Lord Peter, particularly when it comes to class consciousness? I don't think so. I guess there's no pleasing fans. I'm okay with that. When the originals gems are so original, the paste copies just lack the brilliance and seem little more than glitter and glue.

[leslie398 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Really more like 2.5* rounded up...While it was nice to spend some time again with Lord Peter, Bunter & family, I didn't feel like Walsh quite got the nuances of how Peter & Harriet talked.

[wdwilson3 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Heavy on domestic developments, light on mystery substance. Faithful to Sayers' style, but I doubt if she would have countenanced as many adoring looks.

[helenliz_1 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I listened to this on a nifty gadget form the library called Playaway. It's a mp3 player loaded with the one book, so no need to have your own mp3 player and deal with the hassles of downloading, you just need a battery and, in my case, a lead to connect it to the headphone socket of the car. Fab. No more changing CDs while hurtling along at high(ish) speed. Once I got the technology sorted, using it was ace. So, now to the book. I remain slightly unconvinced by this. Set in 1951, it starts when Harriet sees the obituary of Lord Attenbury, and so the details of Peter's first case, that of the Attenbury Emeralds, come out. this is mentioned on several occasions in the DL Sayers Wimsey books, but the detail are never disclosed. The telling becomes painful as it uncovers more of the physiological issues Peter suffered after the war (at this time when we're remembering the dead of WW1, it is worth remembering that those who survived often suffered both physical and mental distress for many years, stretching to decades, after the conflict finished). And so the case appears closed - but then the new Lord Attenbury (a pompous young man) and there's an issue with the the merald - someone else claims its theirs. and so there begins a lot o digging into the past of the Attenbury family. I pinned it on the wrong person, but the conclusion was neatly tied up. This next bit is spoilerville - I haven't read all of the subsequent works by JPW, so I had missed that Peter was now heir to the Dukedom. And he duly inherits just as the ancestral pile is burnt to the ground. He doesn't like this one bit, but duly does his duty, and Harriet does her best as well. Helen manages to be a awful as ever. But this still leaves me uncomfortable about the books continuing into the post war period. It seems to me that Peter should be left frozen in a timeless late youth, it's the age that seems to suit him best. I know that even during the DLS books he matures from gay man about town to married man and settles down, but to now see him at 60 and beginning to look like an anachronism in an increasingly modern age doesn't feel very kind. I'm not sure where she can take him from here and I'm not sure Peter in his dotage is something I want to see.

[antiquary_1 · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

I like this more than Thrones. Dominations, which was a profoundly unhappy book. This one does have some unhappy people in it but overall it is more like early Wimsey, with a frankly improbable mystery or series of mysteries involving three fabulous Mughal emeralds which are identical except for a different part of a quotation from Hafiz carved on the back of each. I liked a lot of the book except (spoiler warning) from when Wimsey's ancestral home Bredon Hall burns down and his brother Gerald dies, making him duke of Denver (Gerald's canonical son Viscount St. George (Pickled Gherkins) having been killed off in the Battle of Britain, am uncanonical liberty but credible given his reckless character.) . Wimsey as duke and Harriet as duchess are not very credible, though he was tending to "revert to type" in the last canonical stories. The mystery is pretty good, though the villainess has some unexplained qualities (knowledge of classical Persian poetry, knowledge of jewels, knowledge of strangling) .

[sandyamcpherson · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This whole narrative was a real let down for me ~ obviously I went into it with some unrealized expectations. There were three flaws that could have been avoided by adroit handling of the theme, since the premise for the novel was sound and had promise.Initially, despite my careful re-reading, confusion reigned in the family relationships. The list of characters in the front was rather useless since it was in order of appearance, which does not associate the various families, their siblings and their children. I made some family-tree notes to keep track of how all the people were related, a process I find highly irritating, because then I’m doing the writer’s job. In the right hands, a backstory method can be very effective where characters relate past events in conversations years later with people who weren’t participants. Walsh overdid this technique and failed to make an interesting narrative. All the action and characterization was flattened out into a recital of two-dimensional episodes. This approach interferes with the reader being drawn into the story and relegates the plot to a character-dependent interpretation.The third flaw was especially irritating: a complete stranger, Nandine Osmantus, shows up with an emerald and wants to compare it to the famous one about to be worn by Charlotte, the bride-to-be at a private engagement party. Aside from the improbability of an unauthenticated person being admitted on such an errand, especially at such a time in a private house, there was never any effort to justify such action, since the jewel was not for sale under any circumstance. Of course this scenario was to set up the original theft, but it was so poorly-executed that I just lost patience.Ultimately, there were some interesting twists, especially in later years. But the novel had lost its potential for impact by then and the conversational approach diluted the action.I wonder if I've moved beyond Sayer's way of writing or if this was more particularly Walsh’s style? I've only the dimmest memories now (30+ years later) of DLS’s writing style. I remember liking the Peter Wimsey character at the time, but in Walsh's book, he seems so ineffectual. My rating in this instance is particularly reflective of my personal bias, something I usually manage to avoid.

[athenable · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Splendidly entertaining, even for those of us who've never read any of the Lord Peter Wimsey books. Now I'm very interested in reading the originals.

I won my copy through First Reads.

[jjmcgaffey · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

Hmmmph. Well, for one thing, it's barely a detective story - it's a study of English society, at several levels and in two (or more) times. Before the War, after the war, and (a bit) during. There is a mystery told and unraveled, but that's more of a frame to the study of society; I, at least, was never caught up in the mystery at all. It's also awkward because for a long time it's not sure there is a mystery, it's just a series of odd events. It turns out to be multiple murder, but none of them strike home, not even the one where we get to meet the victim - it's presented very coldly. Pretty much pure telling rather than showing. There are also two flaws in the story as a mystery - an object mentioned early on that shouldn't have been of importance until much later, when it's explained, and a description...well, Peter says that there was no inscription on the back of the one he found. Except there should have been, by the way they worked things out - not the one they expected, but an inscription. The one without an inscription is the paste. That's annoying. Then there's the way the author jerks the Wimseys around - one death mentioned in passing, no more than a tossed-off sentence, and another in a moment of crisis that changes everything for Peter and Harriet. It feels like she's messing with something that doesn't belong to her. So - fails as a story (too much telling), fails as a mystery (too obscure, plus two egregious errors), and fails as a Wimsey story because it doesn't feel that Walsh has the right to make those changes. I rather like the way Peter and Harriet handle them, and the changes in Dukes Denver sound excellent, but still. I'm glad I read it, I won't read it again. And I really hope Walsh isn't going to write any more.

[auntieknickers · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This is, I think, the third of Jill Paton Walsh's books using the characters of Dorothy L. Sayers. Some may find them heresy and others, like me, will enjoy meeting Harriet and Lord Peter again. In this book it's 1951 and Harriet asks Lord Peter to tell her about one of his earliest cases, The Attenbury Emeralds (referred to in at least one of Sayers's books). He and Bunter tell about the emeralds and the later case of the Attenbury diamonds, and then the present Lord Attenbury arrives at the Wimseys' London home with a new problem involving the emeralds. During the investigation, some major changes occur in the Wimseys' life as well. The plot is a bit far-fetched but I enjoyed the book. There were a few locutions that bothered me. I don't think that even if many Brits were saying "Okay" after the war, that Wimsey would have so far changed his habitual style of speech as to use that word. And when a character uses "into" in the sense of "deeply interested in", I feel I'm in the 1990s at least rather than the 1950s.

[kimmr_2 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

I loved how this one started out, but then it seemed that Paton Walsh lost her way towards the end. I didn't mind too much though, because Peter and Harriet were still fairly true to character and they were the reason I wanted to read the book anyway.

[themulhern · Rating: 2 out of 5 stars]

This book retains many of the flaws of Sayers' original works and adds some of its own. Sayers was one of the many feminist Quislings of her era, taking advantage of the gains of prior and current feminists, while simultaneously repudiating them. Jill Paton Walsh retains this aspect of the prior work. In a departure from Sayers original works, various foreigners are treated obtrusively as equals by Lord Peter, leaving the general impression that after WWII only women are still continued to be inferior. There is a tremendous and grating focus on the preservation or erasure of class distinctions by various parties. We can never know how Sayers would really have dealt with the aftermath of WWII, but probably with a little more panache. There is a terrible overuse of adverbs. Sayers may not have been a good writer, but she was talented and clever, and her prose moved along nicely avoiding this verbal clutter. The accumulated offspring are cloying and awful. Helen, Peter's sister-in-law, is a caricature of a caricature.Edward Petherbridge's reading is excellent. Harriet Vane's voice is distinctive, but not over high.I am not at all sure that Jill Paton Walsh is a poor author. I remember reading some of her historical fiction for young adults when I was younger and liking it very much. Perhaps the challenge of writing a pastiche of a very distinctive and difficult author would have been too much for anybody. Perhaps it would have been better to write a novel where the crime is actually set and detected in Lord Peter's original milieu and time.

[maya47bob46 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This was Paton Walsh's first "solo" Sayers book. I didn't like it as much as Presumption of Death but I did enjoy the glimspes of post war London and the changing dynamic between Peter and Bunter.

[janesteen_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Where I got the book: purchased on Amazon.SPOILER WARNING: I can't discuss one particular point without a massive spoiler, so please don't read this if you're intending to read the book. I think this particular plot twist deserves to jump out at you from a dark corner, but I also feel it's important to discuss it.HORRIBLY LONG REVIEW WARNING: enough said.Reading this book set me thinking about characters. Writers are always being told that the best books are character-driven, but if you think about it, most books do not contain memorable characters. Casting my mind around I can think of a few examples from past and present: Diana Gabaldon's Jamie and Claire (and arguably Lord John); Rhett and Scarlett; Hilary Mantel's take on Thomas Cromwell; Scrooge; Severus Snape; Gandalf; Amelia Peabody and her various family members; and, of course, Lord Peter Wimsey, Harriet Vane and some (not all) of their supporting characters.That's my short list, although more examples crowd into my head as I write. It's subjective, of course - I've always found Edward and Bella dreary, but I'll acknowledge that they come alive for many fans. And that's what, imho, produces fan fiction; characters that can and, in our minds, do walk off the page and take up an independent existence in our imagination.Here we have a peculiar example of sanctioned fan fiction: the Dorothy L. Sayers estate gave Jill Paton Walsh permission to write stories for publication about characters that still enjoy copyright status (if I can say such a thing). Until these books started appearing I, like most Wimsey fans, had LPW and Harriet locked in my head, existing eternally in the eternal sunshine of a vanished world, detecting and writing and never having to worry about doing the washing up.So now (finally!) we get to my difficulty with the first part of this book. We've jumped ahead maybe 7 or 8 years from A Presumption of Death. WWII is done and dusted, and we are in the sober, gritty years of the post-war period. Lord Peter is--I tremble to think of it--SIXTY, and I feel like I've awakened from a Rip Van Winkle sleep to find out my children are now grandmothers. GAAAAAH. He clearly doesn't have enough to do; his first mission is to procure a copy of a missing teaspoon. DOUBLE GAAAAH, even if it IS antique silver. He starts out the novel by sitting around psychoanalyzing his past self. MORE GAAAH THAN I CAN GET INTO A GAAAAAAAH, even a very long one. To be brief, this opening just doesn't work for me. It feels like fan fiction of the worst kind, even if Paton Walsh does write well (although not, as other critics have noted, with Sayers' referential erudition; this is, on the whole, a bad thing even if DLS's later books were a leeeetle bit too quote-sprinkled for my liking).The most interesting point at the outset of this book is that the characters have caught up with what we, as readers born well after WWII, always knew; that the world of the original Wimsey books is lost and gone forever. Sayers' London is irrevocably altered in this novel; I was touched when one character describes St. Paul's surrounded by ruins in which wildflowers are growing, several years after the War's end. (As a small child in the mid-60s I remember that there were still many traces of the War, in a country which did not have the financial resources to recover quickly; air-raid shelters still stood here and there and I remember being told that what looked like demolition sites were in fact bomb sites, 20 years after the War's end. It was only after I came to live in a country that's never been bombed that the full significance of this percolated into my brain.) A Labor government has set about dismantling the power and wealth of the aristocracy with that most deadly of weapons, death duties, making the great homes of the pre-WWI period into millstone liabilities. I give full credit to Paton Walsh for not just refusing to gloss over these facts of life (it would have been so easy to stick to a fantasy of wealth and privilege) but for making them a part of the fabric of her plot. Not only does the need to pay death duties drive much of the action, but later developments in the book bring the theme of responsibility that's a leitmotiv of Wimsey's existence into sharp focus.The unfortunate first part of the book revolves around LPW's reminiscences about his first case, the missing Attenbury emeralds. It's the sitting-around-talking-then-wavy-lines-flashback structure that's the joykiller here, although I must admit I'm hard put to imagine how Paton Walsh could have told the story in, as it were, real time because her books are about Peter AND Harriet, and in the early 20s there was no Harriet. Still, I spent much time huffing over the fanfictiony feel of these introductory chapters.And then, suddenly, by an ENORMOUS COINCIDENCE (seriously, Ms Paton Walsh?) we have a new problem concerning the same emeralds in the book's present day. After I got over snorting about the ENORMOUS COINCIDENCE, I suddenly realized I was enjoying the book. Perhaps if we'd started with the current action and brought in the previous story of the emeralds in short flashbacks, instead of reminiscing over sherry? I don't think it would have been beyond a good writer's brain to do this. From this point on I felt like I was back in Wimsey-world: following up clues, interviewing witnesses, albeit in a clearly altered world. All good.Until...The fire at Duke's Denver. I did not see that coming. What I said at the time is unprintable, so let's just say that I was a little upset. Remember what I said about the eternal sunshine? The whole point of LPW is that he's a relatively carefree younger son, able to gad about and detect things without being tied to a job. And then Paton Walsh, in one stroke, lands him with all the responsibility he's feared all his life, plus a new title.I did not throw the book across the room at this point, but read on. And somehow managed to be reconciled to this utter destruction of the fundamentals of the Wimsey universe, mostly because the down-to-earth well-there-it-is-let's-get-on-with-it, terribly BRITISH attitude of Harriet, Bunter and their various sons a) keep Wimsey from going overly pear-shaped about the responsibility and b) make the whole switcheroo seem almost, well, inevitable. Especially Harriet's embracing her role as Duchess and starting on a garden where half the house once stood (which is probably exactly what I would have done!) because there's a philosophical point there, something about making good out of ill but I don't want to get into analyzing it. Of course there was still, at this point, the little matter of rounding out the story of the emeralds, but I got a feeling of closure. As if this is definitely, finally, the last Peter and Harriet book (their love embodied in Indian marble) and I could leave them in the eternal sunshine (metaphorically; we are, after all, talking about England) of their own Garden of Eden.Some reviewers have said that there are two stories in this book. I'd say there were three. They're linked, but the linkages are not, to my mind, made with quite the structural firmness that would have really satisfied me. It's a well-written book (from the point of view of readability) and probably worth reading again, so I'm giving it 4 stars; but they're a weak 4, more like a 3.6.

[dorritt_1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

As a fan of the original Sayers' mysteries, approached this with trepidation. Would the author do justice to the characters, the mood, the voice of the Sayers originals? In a word, yes. Which is, as it turns out, both fortunate and regrettable.What I suspect most fans value in the original Wimsey stories is here: the deep relationship between Peter and Harriet, the witty literary references that zing like fireworks through the text, the charming cast of supporting characters (Bunter, The Dowager Duchess Honoria, Gerald/Helen, Inspector Parker/Mary, and the Honorable Freddy Arbuthnot all make appearances in this tale). Walsh does a generally creditable job of extrapolating the relationship between Peter and Harriet decades into their marriage, of capturing the psychological complexities of the characters, and of portraying accurately the social and cultural complexities of post-WWII England.But, what many readers object to in Sayers' tales is also here: namely, an overly-complex mystery whose solution hinges on a complex analysis of alibis and timetables, long on clever repartee but noticeably short on action. In this case, the plot involves a set of dazzling emeralds, a country house full of suspects, and a plot that extends over 30yrs. Honestly, I don't think most readers are going to be able to ferret out the solution without resorting to calendars, lists of suspects, and possibly a flow chart.Which isn't to say that Walsh doesn't contribute a few flaws of her own. I found the first part of the novel, in which Peter narrates his past association with the emeralds, somewhat tedious (don't they teach authors in Writing 101 that it's better to show than tell what's happening?). Eventually, however, the tale does finally shift into the present tense, and by the time personal matters (which I won't disclose here) intrude upon the ongoing investigation, the author had me hooked. This definitely isn't meant to be a reader's first exposure to this cast of characters. But if you're already a Peter Wimsey fan, go ahead and let your guard down - there's nothing here to offend, and chances are you'll walk away with a smile on your face, grateful at having had the opportunity to spend a few more hours in Lord Peter's good company.

[phoebesmum · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

More stars than there are in the midnight sky to Jill Paton Walsh for giving Lord Peter back to us. There are flaws, or occlusions perhaps, as there are in the eponymous emerald - would Lord Peter ever have said "throwing a wobbly" or, indeed, "okay"? - but, weight for weight and carat by carat, these are easily forgivable. A jewel in the Wimsey coronet.

[keeline_2 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

She captured the characters well, had an interesting story that takes place both in Wimsey's past and "present" and brings up many of our favorite characters from the series. I'm a fan of Sayers and it was nice to be able to read something that felt like one of her late Wimsey stories.

[aulsmith · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

There are a few bloppers that I think the Magistra would have avoided, including a very odd narrative style at the beginning and some awkward plotting, but I thoroughly enjoyed this visit with my old friends and was glad to see them getting on so well.

[melaniehope · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

This is the third book in the series. I tried reading the first 2 books, but never made it past the first few chapters. So I was so surprised at how much I enjoyed this book. It was like settling down to a good old-fashioned mystery movie. I like that a character list is included in the book, and so you could read The Attenbury Emeralds even if you have not read any other in the series. The characters were believable and the mystery was fun! Well done book and a must read for mystery fans or not!

[readinggeek451 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lord Peter Wimsey's first case has ramifications far into the future. The story starts off all light-hearted piffle, but turns more and more serious.Wimsey purists of my acquaintance did not approve of Paton Walsh's previous book. I, however, rather liked it, and I liked this one, too.

[adpaton · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Lord Peter Wimsey is a Golden Age gentleman sleuth who has not stood the test of time as well as Hercules Poirot or Jane Marple: originally created by the donnish Dorothy Sayers, he has been rediscovered by Jill Paton Walsh in a series of pastiches, remaining true to the original but more readable. The Attenbury Emeralds is the third and, by all accounts, the best: it starts with a country house weekend, goes on to a cursed jewel, a serial killer, and a fabulously rich Maharajah. Post War London, family tragedy - and family secrets with a hefty dash of snobbism - add to the richness of the mix. Sayers, a clever but somewhat opinionatedly limited Anglo-Catholic blue stocking, was a product of her time with all the racial and anti-semitic and sexual biases worn on her sleeve: Paton Walsh avoids all this and portrays an almost anachronistically egalitarian and open-minded family. Dorothy Sayers was accused of having crated a man she could love in the character of Wimsey, and then promptly falling in love with him. This Wimsey is better than the original but I find him unexciting: his accession to the Dukedom took me by surprise and it will be intrsting to see how Harriet - a middle class writer of detective stories and a bit of a Red - takes to being called 'Your Grace'. Sheer escapism but a grand read!

[whirligigwitch · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Slow paced to start with but an enjoyable sequel to the Dorothy L Sayers series. I found the portrayal of society in the midst of serious change and upheaval of accepted social order quite well drawn and fascinating. The principal characters - Harriet, Lord Peter, Bunter and The Dowager Duchess were well drawn and consistent with the original Sayers creations.