The Late Scholar

The Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet, Book 4

By: Jill Paton Walsh

Narrated by: Matthew Brenher

Length: 9 hrs and 45 mins

Publisher's summary

Lord Peter Wimsey and his detective novelist wife Harriet Vane return in Jill Paton Walsh's brilliant new continuation of Dorothy L. Sayers's classic mysteries.

When a dispute among the fellows of St. Severin's College, Oxford University, reaches a stalemate, Lord Peter Wimsey discovers that as the Duke of Denver he is "the Visitor" - charged with the task of resolving the issue. It is time for Lord Peter and his detective novelist wife Harriet to revisit their beloved Oxford, where their long and literate courtship finally culminated in their engagement and marriage.

At first, the dispute seems a simple difference of opinion about a valuable manuscript that some of the fellows regard as nothing but an insurance liability, which should be sold to finance a speculative purchase of land. The voting is evenly balanced. The warden would normally cast the deciding vote, but he has disappeared. And when several of the fellows unexpectedly die as well, Lord Peter and Harriet set off on an investigation to uncover what is really going on at St. Severin's.

With this return to the Oxford of Gaudy Night, which many readers regard as their favorite of Sayers's original series, Jill Paton Walsh revives the wit and brilliant plotting of the golden age of detective fiction.

©2013 Jill Paton Walsh and the Trustees of Anthony Fleming, deceased. (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

For die-hard Wimsey fans

Any additional comments?

Jill Paton Walsh continues her brilliant evocation of Dorothy Sayer's detective series. However, this book is a paired continuation of Gaudy Night - in my opinion the most difficult and dense of the Sayer mysteries. Walsh has written a lovely book, and it is nowhere near as confusing as Gaudy Night. I am glad to have it in my library, but I enjoyed Walsh's previous novels more. I look forward to more books in Walsh's series.

Another Good Lord Peter and Harriet story

I love reading about Peter and Harriet in the post-war world. Unfortunately the narration is sub-par, especially when it is a woman character.

narrator spoils the story. reads "ms" as "ms"

This is not a bad story, considering it's faux Sayer, but the Brenher reading makes it sound like a children's book. The most amazing anomaly in the reading is the narrator's reading "ms." (manuscript abbreviation) as "m" "s"-- literally he says the letters "ms" instead of saying "manuscript." This is a book about a missing manuscript, so you are constantly hearing the characters talking about the missing "ms"!

I Quite Like This Authors Slant on Dorothy L Sayers Work

It was an enormous undertaking to write behind such a well known and beloved author… not only did she do well, but quite surpassed Dorothy in my humble opinion,.. it has a more modern feel,.. even though it was in the identical time frame… Brava..

Entertaining and Well Paced

Wonderful story with enough detail to make it engaging and relatively fast paced. Because of that detail, the ending of the book seems quite a distance from the beginning, which is a good thing. A book with a sweep of time, characters, and locations is a good thing. The characters are adequately developed but could use a bit more. The intrigue and twists are well crafted and enjoyable. The performance is well done.

Recommended. Will look for more from this author/performer.

Poor narration

What did you love best about The Late Scholar?

Patton catches some of the spirit of Sayers.

What did you like best about this story?

Again, Patton catches some of the spirit of Sayers.

What didn’t you like about Matthew Brenher’s performance?

Brenher has a really poor sense of rhythm and timing in reading a text. He often falls into a monotonic set of bursts of a half-dozen words at a time, regardless of what the text means. The story compensates for the poor narration, but only partially.

If you were to make a film of this book, what would the tag line be?

An interesting imitation of Dorothy Sayers.

Pronunciation problems

The narrator mispronounced many of the names of places in Oxford as well as the names of some of the characters. It was rather distracting. His women’s voices are also a little artificially high pitched and all sound rather similar. However the story is engaging and he does do an excellent Lord Peter voice.

Unfortunate performance by reader

I always enjoy LPW mysteries and I’ve no problem with Paton Walsh’s adaptations - she’s thorough and consistent. This is a pretty good cozy with all the trappings and red herrings 👍🏽. The problem is with the reader - I doubt he’s ever even read a Sayers book or watched an episode of the (or either) series. He makes all the characters including Peter, Harriette, and Bunter, unlikable with a voice that is monotonous and stilted. He also mis-pronounces names(!) and makes no attempt to differentiate between voices or emotions. This really should be better, more thoughtfully produced and re-recorded. I am sorry to say I can’t recommend it solely due to the reader.

Distressing performance

I love Edward Petherbridge, so this performance was especially distresssing. His accents were incredibly flat and common, with poor expression and chewed or chopped consonants. I was surprised. The expression of emotions ran the full range, as Dorothy Parker put it, from A to B. I'll wwrite more later, but I had to write something because this was so, well, unexpectedly poorly read. How did this happen from such a wonderful actor and reader

Pleasantly surprised

Don’t often enjoy another author’s continuation of a character or storyline. Listened to this one because I couldn’t settle on anything else. Pleasantly surprised. The story was well written. The characters were the same lovely people portrayed by Sayers. The references to classical literature added to the interest of the story. Thank you for an enjoyable listen!