"Busman's Honeymoon" by Dorothy L Sayers

The last of DLS's murder mystery series starring aristocratic sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey. 

Lord Peter and whodunnit writer Harriet Vane get married after a courtship campaign started by LPW in Strong Poison and continued in Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night finally wears down Harriet's defences. DLS appears more interested in the honeymoon of her characters than in the story. But there is an utterly ingenious murder at the heart of the book. There are also a smattering of delightful, mostly rural and mostly stereotyped, characters. 

Having guessed the method (and therefore the culprit) very early on I was able to admire the way in which DLS scattered clues, often by her choice of metaphor or while relating something wholly unrelated to the crime.

However, regular readers of this blog know that a dislike the use of foreign language when it is not translated and there are whole pages of this. It seems to me that this is just the author showing off: I can write in more than one language. In addition, there are pages of LPW (and HV) engaging in a battle of quotations with the poetry loving policeman. This became very tedious and seemed to be just another way in which DLS could thrust her erudition before the reader. 

(Before I am accused of hypocrisy I will come clean and admit that in my novel Motherdarling I have a character who has lived in France and therefore sometimes slips into French. However, these are always translated except for the single paragraph in which he uses French for a torrent of abuse; I thought the meaning was clear and it was better left untranslated. Motherdarling is available on Amazon.

Moments to treasure:

• "What’s a poet? Something that can’t go to bed without making a song about it." (Prothalamion)
• "Wonder whether Mussolini’s mother spanked him too much or too little – you never know, these psychological days." (Prothalamion)
• "To do her justice, I can’t see that she could have found anything nastier to say if she’d thought it out with both hands for a fortnight." (Prothalamion)
• "so I told him hastily I was sure his diagonal was the right one (wonder whether I meant ‘angle’ or ‘diagnosis’)" (Prothalamion)
• "Yes, he seems to be getting a nice derangement of epitaphs, poor old creature." (C 7)
• "It is impossible for human nature to believe that money is not there. It seems so much more likely that the money is there and only needs bawling for." (C 8)
• "Your notion of loutishness is exceedingly feeble and limited. You simply don’t know how to begin." (C 10)
• "What was a gentleman for, except to take your difficulties to?" (C 11)
• "Gawdamighty, wot a tongue! I wonder ’er own spit don’t poison ’er." (C 15)
• "It’s a pity the dead are so quiet; it makes us ready to forget them." (C 17)
• "Her faculty for hitting the right nail on the head is almost miraculous – especially as all her blows have the air of being delivered at random." (C 19)
• "Not that anything but a very rapidly moving picture could really convey her quality." (Epithalamion 2)

A fun story and an easy read. January 2021

This review was written
by the author of Motherdarling

I have now completed reading all the Lord Peter Wimsey novels (mostly again) in order. The ones I have read and reviewed in this blog include:

• Whose Body in which my Lord and his manservant, Bunter, are introduced
• Clouds of Witness in which Lord Peter must sleuth to get his brother Gerald, Duke of Denver, off a murder charge; Bunter assists; policeman Parker falls in love with Peter's sister Mary
• Unnatural Death which introduces another Wimsey sidekick: Miss Climpson; Bunter is involved
• The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club; Bunter is involved as is Miss Climpson
• Strong Poison which introduces Harriet Vane, a detective writer who becomes Lord Peter's love interest; Bunter realises Lord Peter's affection first
• The Five Red Herrings; Lord Peter in Scotland; Bunter in the background
• Have His Carcase: Harriet and Peter investigate the death of a gigolo with dreams; Bunter has a small supporting role
• Murder Must Advertise: Peter goes undercover at an advertising agency; Bunter plays a very small role; policeman Parker has married Mary and they have sons
• The Nine Tailors: Peter investigates the discovery of a body in someone else's grave in a small fenland village. Floods and campanaology.
• Gaudy Night: Harriet Vane investigates poison pen letters and high jinks art her old college; Lord Peter arrives belatedly to assist

There are also Wimsey books written since the death of DLS by Jill Paton Walsh. These include:

• The Attenbury Emeralds in which Lord Peter, in 1951, recalls the circumstances of his first case, the Attenbury Emeralds, which have gone missing again.
• The Late Scholar: in which Wimsey returns to Oxford