The Attenbury Emeralds The Attenbury Emeralds The Attenbury Emeralds is the third Lord Peter Wimsey-Harriet Vane detective novel written by Jill Paton Walsh. Featuring characters created by Dorothy L. Sayers, it was written with the co-operation and approval of Sayers' estate. It was published by Hodder & Stoughton in September 2010. "The Attenbury Emeralds" recounts how Lord Peter begins his hobby of amateur sleuthing in 1921 by becoming involved in the recovery of the Attenbury Emeralds. Lord Peter's "first case" is a mystery mentioned by Lord Peter's creator Dorothy L. Sayers in a number of novels, but until now never fully told. The
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.