Busman's Honeymoon

Busman’s Honeymoon
The final full-length Lord Peter Wimsey novel (and the fourth featuring Harriet Vane) begins as a romantic comedy: newlyweds Lord Peter and Harriet retreat to a quiet country house for their honeymoon, hoping for privacy after years of courtship. Their plans collapse when they discover the body of the house’s former owner, a disagreeable moneylender, murdered in the cellar. Drawn reluctantly into investigation, the couple work together to unravel the crime while navigating the awkward shift from detective partners to married life. The mystery turns on hidden debts, revenge, and a locked-room–style puzzle involving mechanical timing and alibis. Sayers combines classic fair-play detection with acute observation of class tensions in 1930s rural England and with unusually deep character work. The novel is as much about trust, intimacy, and moral responsibility in marriage as it is about solving a murder, closing the Wimsey–Vane saga on a thoughtful, emotionally satisfying note.