dear harriet walter: Wimsey covers: Unnatural Death

    Dear Harriet Walter,

    Time for more Wimsey covers. It's turning into a habit now.

    While I am not especially seized with fiery love and deep interest for this next selection (neither the story itself nor the covers), I'm still a rotten stickler for doing things in their proper order from time to time, and so now we come to Book 3.

    Unnatural Death (1927)

    As with Clouds of Witness, the premise of this story - some old lady dies and it might have been murder but nobody can think how or why it could be murder - doesn't offer much in the way of striking or dramatic imagery to work with. The resulting batch of covers are, unfortunately, rather a vague hodgepodge.

(as always, the descriptions apply to the images directly proceeding them)

This is the copy I own, although the color of mine is much grassier. Here we see what seems to be an Airedale terrier sniffing at the cadaver of an ill-dressed young woman in a field. I love dogs and corpses just as much as I love kitties and corpses, so this gets a thumbs-up.

Huzzah! Elizabeth George edition! I rather like this one. I'm not sure if the lady is supposed to be one of the characters or if the cover designers just decided that picture of people in period-appropriate clothing would suffice, but either way I would probably wear her clothes if given the chance.

Holy wow does that ever make me feel uncomfortable. Wow. Look at all those unpleasant things. It would be slightly worse if the wrench was covered in blood, but the rust is bad enough as is. (Note, for fun, the bizarrely orange air bubble.)

Audiobook time! This is pretty. I like the colors and the angle and the overall style. (And the cloche hat. And the fedora. Mmmmm.)

Blue, car, needle. I like the stripe across the middle.

Another audiobook. I have no idea what's going on there. Monocle again, obviously, but...what's that gold thing? And is the amberish thing some kind of bottle? Is there a - No, I don't know. I wish I could see it in person.

Ok, ok, I know we can't tell what's going on here either but it looks totally awesome anyway. Awesome and baffling. (Were there any fine gentlemen out on a hunt with their beagles in UD? Nothing is coming to mind.)