The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club, by Dorothy Sayers

Old General Fentiman has a ticktock life. Every morning he rises and goes to the Bellona Club, where he sits in his particular chair by the fire—his chair not by purchase or reservation, but by long custom. And there he sits, nearly motionless, until it is time to return home that afternoon. Someone jokes that he could die right there in his chair, and it might be hours before anyone would notice.

And then, of course, Colonel Marchbanks goes to speak to him, and he is, in fact, dead.

There is no question of murder. He’s dead, but he was quite old and had a bad heart. He could have dropped dead at any moment these past five years.

It seems that old General Fentiman had a sister, from whom he’d long been estranged, and whom he had visited the night before he died. It seems that this sister had a most unusual will: if she predeceased her brother, the money was left one way, but if he predeceased her, it was left another way. And it seems that she died the same day as old General Fentiman, within an hour or two. But which way? And was anyone motivated to help the General or his sister along the way? Could it be murder? And if so how? And why? And who?

Of Sayers’ first four Peter Wimsey novels, I enjoyed this one the most. Unlike Unnatural Death, which was pinned on a single gimmick, the means of death, this is a richer pudding, with lots of tasty bits and lots of fun characters. I had no memory of how the trick was done or who was responsible, and was pulled agreeably this way and that by a variety of red herrings. There was lots of Lord Peter being goofy, which I like, and also the usual ties to the events of the day: one of the old general’s grandsons is severely shell-shocked, and a portion of the book takes place among what would have been called the “Bohemian set”, the starving artists and writers. If you like classic mysteries, by all means give this one a try.