352 pages
Published July 22, 1993 by HarperPerennial.
When a man Victor Dean falls down the stairs in the offices of Pym's Publicity, a respectable London advertising agency, it looks like an accident. Then Lord Peter Wimsey is called in, and he soon discovers there's more to copy writing than meets the eye-- cocaine, blackmail, and some wanton women can be read between the lines.
Office politics, worker safety, customer service in 1930s London; found utterly fascinating. Glad I had some time off after New Years, because it was hard to put down.
A very enjoyable yarn. This was my first Lord Peter Wimsey book, and I didn't find him to be a very believable character. He seems to be brilliantly talented at everything, with no discernible character flaws.
But that aside, this was a good story very well told. Some of the prose, especially the little set-pieces comprising multiple cross-cutting conversations, was impressively well constructed, and quite reminiscent of some of Virginia Woolf's.
So, not bad overall.
