A Presumption of Death persons is not war, but it is the surest form of victory. A Presumption of Death A Presumption of Death is a Lord Peter Wimsey-Harriet Vane 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
The Wimsey Papers at the time when European dictators were committing mass murders openly and with impunity. This seems to have been Sayers's own feeling, as she in fact abandoned during World War II the writing of murder mysteries and never took it up again. There is a repeated unfavorable opinion of the Soviet Union, in the aftermath of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact and the Soviet attack on Finland. The opinion that there was little to choose between communism and fascism, and that the two kinds of dictatorship are equally reprehensible, is given special prominence by being attributed to Lord Peter Wimsey himself. Other