In 1936, Dorothy L. Sayers abandoned the
last Lord Peter Wimsey detective story. Sixty years later, a
brown paper parcel containing a copy of the manuscript was
discovered in her agent’s safe in London, and award-winning
novelist Jill Paton Walsh was commissioned to complete it.
The result of the pairing of Dorothy L. Sayers with Walsh
was the international bestseller Thrones, Dominations.
Now, following A Presumption of Death, set during World War
II, comes a new Sayers-inspired mystery featuring Lord Peter
Wimsey, revisiting his very first case. . . . It was 1921
when Lord Peter Wimsey first encountered the Attenbury
Emeralds. The recovery of the gems in Lord Attenbury’s
dazzling heirloom collection made headlines—and launched a
shell-shocked young aristocrat on his career as a detective.
Thirty years later, a happily married Lord Peter has just
shared the secrets of that mystery with his wife, the
detective novelist Harriet Vane. Suddenly, the new Lord
Attenbury—grandson of Lord Peter’s first client—seeks his
help to prove who owns the emeralds. As Harriet and Peter
contemplate the changes that the war has wrought on English
society—and Peter, who always cherished the liberties of a
younger son, faces the unwanted prospect of ending up the
Duke of Denver after all—Jill Paton Walsh brings us a
masterful new chapter in the annals of one of the greatest
detectives of all time.