Lord Peter Wimsey Lord Peter Wimsey Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey is the fictional protagonist in a series of detective novels and short stories by Dorothy L. Sayers (and their continuation by Jill Paton Walsh). A dilettante who solves mysteries for his own amusement, Wimsey is an archetype for the British gentleman detective. Lord Peter is often assisted by his valet and former batman, Mervyn Bunter; his good friend and later brother-in-law, police detective Charles Parker; and in a few books by Harriet Vane, who becomes his wife. Born in 1890 and ageing in real time, Wimsey is described as being of average
Lord Peter Wimsey for their evocation of that period as much as for the intrinsic detective mysteries. It was left to Jill Paton Walsh to extend Wimsey's career through and beyond the Second World War. In the continuations "A Presumption of Death" and "The Attenbury Emeralds" Wimsey and Bunter have returned successfully from their secret mission in 1940 and his nephew Lord St. George is killed while serving as an RAF pilot in the Battle of Britain. Consequently, when Wimsey's brother dies of a heart attack in 1951 during a fire in Bredon Hall at Duke's Denver, Wimsey becomes the Duke of Denver.