This is book 7 of the "Lord Peter Wimsey" series.

This note contains spoilers for the book.

Not one of the grand Sayers, or even the semi-grand (Murder Must Advertise, for example, would be semi-grand). But I haven't read the spots off it yet, either.

It does have, right here on page 24, the most appalling, obnoxious, smug, condescending, cheating, nasty little parenthetical paragraph it has ever been my misfortune to read: "(Here Lord Peter Wimsey told the sergeant what he was to look for and why, but as the intelligent reader will readily supply these details for himself, they are omitted from this page.)" I understand it was the vogue. I believe it has since gone out of fashion, and a damned good thing too. Oh, the issue was that white paint wasn't found in the collection of things allegedly left behind by a painter who fell to his death while painting. Every educated person knows the importance of white oil paint, right?

It's also quite startling to hear a character say "work like niggers" as a semi-complimentary way of saying "worked hard".