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The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Cover of the BBC Adaptation |
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| Author | Dorothy L. Sayers |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Lord Peter Wimsey |
| Genre(s) | Mystery novel |
| Publisher | Ernest Benn |
| Released | 1928 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| ISBN | NA |
| Preceded by | Unnatural Death |
| Followed by | Strong Poison |
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club is a 1928 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her fourth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey.
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This section is a stub. You can help by expanding it. |
The "unpleasantness" is that a 90-year-old member of this men's club in London, General Fentiman, has died in one of its armchairs, and no one noticed for hours that he was dead. During those hours, his wealthy sister also died, and now there is a legal battle between their heirs over which of them died first.
Written after Sayers' marriage to World War I veteran Oswald Arthur "Mac" Fleming, the book explores the affect the "Great War" had on its veterans. The book opens on Remembrance Day, a momentous occasion in a country where every adult had lost someone in the war. General Fentiman's shell-shocked grandson George Fentiman tells Lord Peter:
“Oh rotten as usual. Tummy all wrong and no money. What’s the damn good of it, Wimsey? A man goes and fights for his country, gets his inside gassed out, and loses his job, and all they give him is the privilege of marching past the Cenotaph once a year and paying four shillings in the pound income-tax.”
Fentiman is both grateful and resentful that his wife supports him. Lord Peter's health is better, but as we saw in Whose Body?, he is also a victim of shell-shock.
Similar plot elements appeared in other Lord Peter novels. Whose Body?, The Nine Tailors, and Gaudy Night all touch on WWI and/or Lord Peter's military service. Unnatural Death and Strong Poison explore the legal technicalities governing wills and inheritance more fully.
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club was adapted for television in 1972, as part of a series starring Ian Carmichael as Lord Peter.