Dorothy Leigh Sayers (1893-1957) is anything but forgotten but the focus of mystery readers is on her full-length novels and the collections of short stories, where Mr. Montague Egg, one of my favorite Sayers characters shines. No one talks much about the continuation of the series written by Jill Paton Walsh, which I suppose is understandable. Walsh could not ever hope to emulate Sayers in style and technique but she gave it her best shot, and readers like me love the characters so much we queued up to acquire new books about them.
The first Walsh effort was Thrones, Dominations (St. Martin’s Press, Feb 1998), which was begun by Sayers in 1936 and abandoned by 1939, no one knows why although her growing disillusionment with the crime fiction form is often mentioned. The first six chapters and her notes for the rest of the book were found in her papers after her death. In 1996 literary trustees for the Sayers estate asked Walsh to undertake finishing the book. I always wondered why Walsh was chosen. Nothing I know of her work makes her stand out as the obvious choice.
The book starts after the Wimsey honeymoon, interrupted as it was by the events described in Busman’s Honeymoon, when the Wimseys settle into the routines of married life. The Dowager Duchess of Denver, Wimsey’s mother, has renovated the family mansion in Audley Square for their use, and Helen, Duchess of Denver, is set on doing her duty by launching her new sister-in-law into society. Helen deeply disapproves of Harriet, but then Helen disapproves of just about everything. In this whirlwind of socializing, the Wimseys meet the Harwells, Laurence and Rosamund, whose volatile marriage Sayers meant to contrast with the stability of the Wimseys.
Rosamund is found dead in the Harwell country cottage, obviously murdered. Harriet and Peter launch into another investigation, despite knowing the victim which is more than a little disconcerting. Interspersed with their detective work are references to the death of King George V, placing the narrative firmly in 1936, and the transition of the English throne to King Edward VIII, whose affair with the divorced Wallis Simpson caused a constitutional crisis and forced his abdication within a year of ascending the throne. Rarely do crime novels of the time mention current events so these references are striking. One commentary suggested that the sweeping consequences of the king’s decision to marry a lady unacceptable to the English government further gave Sayers a distaste for her work in progress.
The supporting characters are simply wonderful. Peter’s mother is my favorite of the Wimsey world. She adores her second son but is clear headed enough to know she is biased. The scene in which Peter’s terrifying godmother visits the Wimsey household to examine Harriet is priceless. Harriet holds her own against the aged termagant, which said termagant found enchanting. Helen of course is Helen, upright, humorless, unsympathetic, while Gerald, the current Duke of Denver, is anxious, worried about everyone, and completely ineffectual.
As is plain, I read this book for the characters as opposed to the mystery, which Walsh had to work out to align with Sayers’ notes. Joyce Carol Oates in the New York Times, 15 March 1998, also focused on the characters. She said:
“Found among her papers when she died in 1957, at the age of 64, and completed now by the English novelist Jill Paton Walsh, Thrones, Dominations is an engrossing, intelligent and provocative novel in the guise of a conventional mystery: if it lacks the zest and flashy originality of the earlier Lord Peter books, it seems fully in character with the later, more introspective ones, and its detailed portrait of the marriage of the no-longer-young Lord Peter and the brooding Harriet Vane, set in well-to-do London society in 1936, is both convincing and moving.”
Oates also says “Thrones, Dominations is a literary sport, and for the most part successful, wonderfully written in its descriptive passages (a trek through the London sewers is vividly rendered) and provocative in its pointed discussion of detective fiction.” Although Oates suggests that Sayers might not have agreed entirely with some of the final chapters that Walsh wrote, she believes Walsh did a credible job. I was happy to read this and the succeeding books about the Wimseys, although they lacked the flair and literary polish of Sayers.
See also the Kirkus review, January 1, 1998: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/dorothy-l-sayers/thrones-dominations/
Christian Century commented extensively as well: https://www.christiancentury.org/reviews/2012-05/thrones-dominations-dorothy-l-sayers-amp-jill-paton-walsh
Bev of My Readers Block blog read the book and then listened to Ian Carmichael’s audio version: https://myreadersblock.blogspot.com/2019/09/thrones-dominations.html
For fans of Lord Peter Wimsey and historical mysteries. Readers interested in following Lord Peter specifically should not begin with this title; try the short stories instead, which are a good entry point to the series.