Sayers always alluded to Wilkie Collins as her model for detective fiction because he combined intricate mystery plotting with the surface texture of the novel of manners, but Collins does not have the lively, bright surface charm of Sayers, and he never confronts directly the moral and ethical questions that might be raised by the details of plot. Sayers takes the events of her plots much more seriously and yet presents the surface comedy of life with a much lighter touch. She is thus both more serious than Collins and less serious, and for both facts one may be thankful.

Lord Peter Wimsey is a fairly explicit parody of Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes with some of the fun of P. G. Wodehouse's Bertie Wooster added. Unlike Holmes, Wimsey is a silly ass, but unlike Wooster he is well aware of this fact and uses it...