Murder Must Advertise

I read this 1933 mystery novel as a teen, and it might have begun my love affair with the hero in disguise. In this book, we meet Death Bredon, a newly hired copywriter at Pym’s Publicity. We know, of course, that he is Lord Peter Wimsey in disguise, but we don’t know why the aristocratic amateur detective is pretending to be a working Joe.

The mystery is flawless; the ad agency setting is delightful; the banter is witty; and the climactic cricket match, in which our disguised hero lets his mask slip, is delicious.

A bit dated, but fun.

“Advertising” used to be considered a good field for English majors, because they have “a way with words.” But advertising has morphed. It’s become “marketing” or “public relations” or “publicity”—more about graphics now, than words. Different.

Lord Peter Wimsey however still has “a way with words” in this cozy, so he goes undercover in a London advertising agency to investigate a suspicious death. With PG Wodehouse-like verbal hi-jinks, he ingratiates himself into the copywriting department, composing jingles about cleansers and such.

Silliness ensues. Then an interesting question arises: are there ethics in this business where… show more.

Before becoming a world-renowned author, Dorothy L Sayers worked in an advertising agency and it’s Pimm’s Publicity that’s the fascinating background for Lord Peter Wimsey to discover who’s behind death, drugs, and debauchery. Peter has to join Pimm’s Publicity but it seems incredible that the chatty, humdrum world of the office should hide a killer, let alone an illicit drug distribution network.

Dorothy L. Sayers’s writing is some of the very best of the “Golden Age” of classic mysteries and this is a story you won’t forget.

In this delightful romp of a murder mystery, Lord Peter Wimsey must pose as a new copywriter at a storied, and very posh, advertising agency in London to solve a murder and drug smuggling ring and gets into all kinds of hijinks. It’s a lovely period piece, full of the class boundaries of the English of the era, it's a cross between Agatha Christie and P.G. Wodehouse. The descriptions and observations of an agency decades before television, staffed entirely by posh men and the tension between departments and clients are depressingly familiar and hilarious at the same time. It’s a… show more.