Five Red Herrings

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 recognized and visited to this day.

Some editions include as a foreword a letter written by Sayers "To my friend Joe Dignam, the kindliest of landlords," from which it becomes evident that she herself was in the habit of having 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, of which the book was a fulfilment.