The Documents in the Case
Told entirely through letters, statements, and reports, this 1930 mystery is the one major Dorothy L. Sayers crime novel without Lord Peter Wimsey. A man dies after eating a dish of wild mushrooms, and the coroner rules it an accident. His grieving son refuses to accept that verdict and begins gathering the private correspondence of everyone connected to the household, piecing together jealousy, an unhappy marriage, and a possible poisoning. The case finally turns on a subtle point of chemistry that only laboratory science can settle. Written with Robert Eustace, whose medical knowledge shaped the plot, the book is a clever puzzle and a sharp portrait of people whose own words slowly betray them. This free PDF and EPUB edition returns an ingenious detective story to print.
