A Presumption of Death
Early paperback edition cover
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| Author | Jill Paton Walsh |
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| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Series | Lord Peter Wimsey |
| Genre | Crime novel |
| Publisher | Hodder & Stoughton Ltd |
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Publication date
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November 2002 |
| Media type | Print (hardback & paperback) |
| ISBN | |
| OCLC | 59499647 |
| Preceded by | Thrones, Dominations |
| Followed by | The Attenbury Emeralds |
A Presumption of Death is a mystery novel by Jill Paton Walsh, based loosely on The Wimsey Papers by Dorothy L. Sayers. The novel is Walsh's first original Lord Peter Wimsey novel, following Thrones, Dominations, which Sayers left as an unfinished manuscript, and was completed by Walsh. A Presumption of Death is written by Walsh, except for excerpts from The Wimsey Papers.
Harriet, Lady Peter Wimsey, has evacuated her family to the Wimseys' country house, Talboys in Hertfordshire, taking her two children, along with the three children of her sister-in-law, Lady Mary, and Peter's venerable old housekeeper, Mrs Trapp. Peter and Bunter are away on an undercover assignment.
During an ARP drill, a young woman is murdered in the village, and Superintendent Kirk (who last appeared in Busman's Honeymoon) recruits Harriet to help solve the murder, as the police are short-staffed due to the war and Harriet, as a crime novelist and the wife of a detective, is felt to be the best-qualified available person to find the murderer.
The murdered girl, Wendy Percival, had come from the city as a Land Girl, to do agricultural work and help the war effort. She was killed in the village street while most people were in the village's two air raid shelters during the drill, and much of the investigation turns on who had been, or could have been, outside the shelters when the murder was committed. Patient investigation leads Harriet to eliminate several potential suspects, including two young men in the village with whom Wendy flirted and the RAF pilot who was last with her on the night she died. She also establishes that everyone in the shelters is accounted for, and that there was no way for anyone to leave either shelter unnoticed during the drill. Glumly, she reflects that her list of possible suspects has been reduced to a random "wandering maniac".
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