The Five Red Herrings

About “The Five Red Herrings”

The Five Red Herrings is a 1931 mystery novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her sixth featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It was published in the United States the same year under the title Suspicious Characters. The story centers on Lord Peter as he investigates the death of a Scottish painter found next to a canvas painted in his style by another artist. Six talented artists in the area, each with conflicts with the victim, come under suspicion. Lord Peter determines that one of the six is the criminal, while the others are red herrings. The novel focuses on the process of elimination and the clever misdirection of the suspects. (Summary adapted from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0.)