Stella Rimington on Dorothy L Sayers

Dame Stella Rimington, former director of MI5 and a celebrated crime writer herself, nominates for a Great Life that of Dorothy L Sayers.

Sayers' first Lord Peter Wimsey novel was published in the 1920s, the Golden Age of crime fiction, and he is still very much with us, appearing often on BBC Radio 4 Extra.

She went on to enjoy a huge popularity with her crime novels and then turned to writing Christian essays and plays, most notably the series for the BBC on the life of Christ – which stirred up a great controversy as no-one had before impersonated Jesus on the radio.

Dame Stella tells Matthew Parris why the paradoxes and contradictions in Dorothy Sayers' life fascinate her, and explains how Sayers' writing influences her own. With Seona Ford, chairman of the Dorothy L Sayers Society.

First broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 2014.