Murder Must Advertise

[sawyl]

And so to what is probably the most problematic of Sayers' Wimsey novels, Murder Must Advertise. Despite featuring some truly excellent elements, in the form of staff of Pym's Publicity, the mystery element of book falls rather flat while the supposedly thrilling fast set of debauchers prove to be rather less interesting than the eccentric set of advertising copywriters.

The story opens a week after the death Victor Dean, a young advertising copywriter with Pym's Publicity, with the arrival of his replacement. Mr Bredon, new to advertising but with a gift for puns and wordplay, quickly becomes a favourite around the office despite being excessively interested in how his predecessor managed to fall to his death down the office's iron staircase. After disguising himself as Harlequin and snaring the affections of Dean's former mistress, Dian de Momerie, Bredon discovers a link between Dian's set of drug-taking socialites and the staid surroundings of Pym's.

Despite ostensibly being a drug-smuggling mystery, the real focus of the book is on the office of Pym's Publicity and its cast of eccentrics. A mix of older, more conservative, state educated staffers and bright young things from Oxbridge, the office is a constantly bubbling cauldron of class tensions, childish practical jokes, salacious gossip, and appalling puns. Everyone is either Mr or Miss or a dubious nickname and one character's Christian name is only mentioned when his mistress pays an unscheduled visit to the office.

Of the office regulars, the confident and charming Mr Ingleby stands out as a particularly fine character. Both charming and childish, his fluency and cynicism make him a natural ally of Bredon's and give him a particular insight into the particularly foolish business of advertising:

The vitamines we destroy in the canning, we restore in Revito, the roughage we remove from Peabody's Piper Parritch we make up into a packet and market as Bunbury's Breakfast Bran; the stomachs we ruin with Pompagne, we re-line with Peplets to aid digestion. And by forcing the damn-fool public to pay twice over — once to have it's food emasculated and once to have the vitality put back again, we keep the wheels of commerce turning and give employment to thousands — including you and me.

Sayers makes good use of her own inside knowledge of advertising, making an important plot element turn on the last minute resetting of an advert that the publishing newspaper suspects may contain a double entendre. Not only does this feel archaic in the age of computerised publishing but the blind panic of the Mr Copley as he tries to contact his senior colleagues with messages left at homes and restaurants, feels particularly strange in these days of ubiquitous connectivity.

Sadly, everything outside Pym's feels rather thin in comparison. The de Momerie set aren't terribly interesting and it's hard to see how they might inveigle anyone. The pursuit of a man in evening dress by a hack with the unlikely moniker of Hector Puncheon doesn't really lift things all that much, nor do a couple of dissatisfied, kipper eating policemen. The established minor characters fair slightly better: Charles and Lady Mary come across as an extremely well suited, domestic couple; Freddie and Rachel Arbuthnot prop up the plot in a couple of places; while Helen Duchess of Denver continues to be the perfect snobbish ice maiden.