The Five Red (Lord Peter Wimsey)

Five Red Herrings (also The Five Red Herrings) is a 1931 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers. It was retitled Suspicious Characters for its first publication in the United States, but reverted to its original title in subsequent printings.

Sayers points out in the preface that all the places in the story are real places, and it is a fact that almost all the locations can be recognised and visited to this day.

Some editions include as a foreword a letter written by Sayers "To my friend Joe Dignam, kindliest of landlords", which suggests that she was in the habit of taking holidays in Galloway – a habit attributed to Wimsey in the book – and that on one of them she promised her landlord to write a detective novel set in this area: a promise that this book fulfilled