Book review: Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers

The thirteenth book I read in 2015 is Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers.  Another in the Lord Peter Wimsey series, this mystery has the added hilarity of skewering the advertising industry with a sense of cynicism and verisimilitude that can only come from close personal experience: Sayers was a copywriter for an ad agency for a decade.  On the competition among cigarette manufacturers:

"If Whifflets announce that they don't damage the lungs, Puffins claim that they strengthen the pulmonary system and Gasperettes quote doctors who recommend them in cases of tuberculosis."

As one character remarks, "We spend our whole time asking intimate questions of perfect strangers, and it naturally blunts our finer feelings.  'Mother!  has your Child Learnt Regular Habits?' 'Are you Troubled with Fullness after Eating?' 'Are you Satisfied about  your Drains?' 'Are you Sure that your Toilet-Paper is Germ-free?' 'Your most Intimate Friends dare not Ask you this Question.' 'Do you Suffer from Superfluous Hair?' 'Do you Like them to Look at your Hands?' 'Do you ever ask yourself about Body-Odour?' 'If anything Happened to You, would your Loved Ones be Safe?' 'Why Spend so much Time in the Kitchen?' 'You think that Carpet is clean -- but is it?' 'Are you a Martyr to Dandruff?' Upon my soul, I sometimes wonder why the long-suffering public doesn't rise and slay us."

There is little Bunter in this novel, as in The Five Red Herrings, which is a shame, though Chief-Inspector Parker and his family feature more prominently.  Lord Peter goes undercover in an ad agency, doing a splendid Bertie Wooster impression, to discover which of its employees has a scandalous secret before it can go public and sink the firm, and simultaneously masquerades as his own identical black-sheep cousin.  Sayers slightly overdoes Lord Peter's ubercompetence at everything, but it's an enjoyable read.

The ending, however ... well ... it's....  Okay, spoiler alert: I'm not going to tell you whodunnit or how or why, but I have to say one thing about the aftermath of his unmasking.

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Okay, this is the second Lord Peter mystery that ends with our hero encouraging the erring but proper villain to do the honorable thing and commit suicide as the best possible solution for his family.  In the other, Lord Peter and his friends actually provide the firearm and privacy and wait for the sound of the gunshot; in this one, suicide is technically averted by Lord Peter's serendipitous suggestion that the murderer simply allow his former compatriots to kill him for being discovered.  There are many admirable things about the cricket, stiff-upper-lip society of 1930s Britain, but this particular facet is morally appalling.