A Presumption of Death - Hardcover

"Jill Paton Walsh scores a winner in her second novel based on the characters invented by the late Dorothy L. Sayers."
-Houston Chronicle

There's good news for fans of Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane mysteries. Jill Paton Walsh has repeated the success of her bestseller, Thrones, Dominations, with a new novel featuring the beloved sleuths. Using "The Wimsey Papers," in which Sayers described life in Britain during World War II, Walsh devises an irresistible story set in 1940 at the start of the Blitz.

A Presumption Of Death

While Lord Peter is abroad on a secret mission, Harriet Vane, now Lady Peter Wimsey, takes their children to safety in the country. But there's no escape from war: rumors of spies abound, glamorous RAF pilots and flirtatious land-girls scandalize the villagers, and the blackout makes rural lanes as sinister as London's alleys. And when a practice air-raid ends with a young woman's death, it's almost a shock to hear that the cause is not enemy action, but murder. Or is it? With Peter away, Harriet sets out to find out whodunit...and the chilling reason why.

"Should Walsh have no further original Sayers material to draw on, she seems perfectly suited to continue the series entirely on her own."
-Publishers Weekly (starred review)

Jill Paton Walsh is the author of six novels for adults, one of which, Knowledge of Angels, was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. In addition, she is the author of two crime novels: The Wyndham Case and A Piece of Justice, which was shortlisted for the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger Award, and was co-authored with Dorothy L. Sayers, of Thrones, Dominations.

Dorothy L. Sayers, the greatest of the golden age detective novelists, was born in Oxford in 1893. Her aristocratic detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, became one of the most popular fictional heroes of the twentieth century. She devoted the last 20 years of her life to playwriting, Christian scholarship, and a new translation of Dante. She died in 1957.