Lord Peter Views the Body

Lord Peter Views the Body is a 1928 short story collection gathering twelve Lord Peter Wimsey stories that Sayers had been publishing in periodicals. The cases are tighter and more puzzle-focused than the novels, and several of them rank among the most ingenious detective short stories of the period. The Unprincipled Affair of the Practical Joker turns on a complicated piece of railway timing. The Adventurous Exploit of the Cave of Ali Baba involves Lord Peter infiltrating an organization of jewel thieves. The Vindictive Story of the Footsteps That Ran is one of the cleverest closed-room puzzles in the canon.

The collection is also a good introduction to Lord Peter for readers who do not want to commit to a novel first. The short form forces Sayers to focus on the detective work rather than the social and emotional texture that the longer books develop. Bunter appears throughout. The cases range from light comedy to genuinely dark, and the variety holds the collection together.