A while back I read The Mind of the Maker by Dorothy Sayers and loved it: its mix of no-nonsense theology and creative analysis provided me with the best, and most personal, account of the Trinity I have ever read. In the dim past, Sayers’ translation of Dante’s Commedia was the first version of the work I read, and her determination to include Dante’s terza rima scheme gave me some first pale idea of the power of the original. But, of course, nowadays (and indeed during her life), Sayers is best known for her detective novels starring Lord Peter Wimsey, so I thought I would give one of these a go.

Case solved. It’s not for me. Not for any lack of ingenuity or paucity of literary skill – quite the opposite. The book gives a terrifically acerbic account of upper-class country house life just after the Great War. The mystery is ingenious and the plotting as thorough as any of the other great ladies of detective fiction.

No, it’s the language. Where Sayers’ brusque, almost staccato use of language worked to bracing effect in The Mind Of the Maker, here I found it like listening to pebbles being fired at a corrugated iron wall – one after another after another. This is purely a personal taste and I’m sure other people will find the style as invigorating as I found it exhausting. I do wonder if the style is specific to this particular book, or continues through the series. I will probably dip into another Lord Peter Wimsey to see how it reads in comparison to Clouds of Witness. But, for now, that’s enough – I feel like I’ve been sandblasted!