Busman's Honeymoon

While reading this, the fifth Sayers mystery I've read so far, I was finally able to figure out just why I love her novels more than any other mystery writer I've encountered so far: I love Dorothy Sayers because she does everything wrong, but it all somehow manages to work.There are some commonly accepted rules for novel-writing, and detective-novel-writing specifically, that authors have to follow in order for anyone to enjoy/buy their books. Dorothy Sayers looks at these rules, scoffs, and go [...]

After agreeing to marry Lord Peter Wimsey in “Gaudy Night,” this novel sees the couple marrying and embarking on their honeymoon. Having fought both herself, and her feelings, for so long, Harriet allows Peter to buy her a house – Talboys – a farmhouse that she admired as a child, to be a weekend cottage. Delighted to please her, Peter buys the house from the current owner, Noakes, who agrees to stay there until they move in.However, what with avoiding the press and organising the weddin [...]

Having never read Busman's Honeymoon, I'd still somehow managed to pick up the vague idea that: 1) it featured a married Peter and Harriet, and, because of that fact, 2) it wasn't very interesting. Right on the first count, definitely wrong on the second.It's true that this final Sayers-penned Wimsey mystery is more a meditation on the ups and downs, joys and negotiations of new marriage (Harriet and Peter manage to sneak off for a honeymoon only to discover a corpse in the house), but the myste [...]

Ian Carmichael made a surprisingly good Lord Peter, with none of the 'what-ho' exclamations I was expecting, and I enjoyed seeing Peter and Harriet in their newly-wedded bliss which wouldn't have been complete without a mystery to solve.

This novel is really much more of a love story than a mystery, as Dorothy L Sayers herself acknowledged. But for readers who followed the story of Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane through the three previous novels which featured both characters, it is a most satisfying love story and a welcome culmination to the years of Peter's patient courtship and Harriet's determined resistance. Tbere's enough of a mystery to make it worthy of being called a mystery novel, but no more than that. Apart from the [...]

I somehow managed to miss this Dorothy Sayers mystery when I read all the other Peter Wimseys fifty years ago. It strikes me as even loooonger on characters who are characters than I remember from her other books, offering unusually extended swatches of village rustic, country-bumpkinish dialogue to contrast with quicker, upper-crust wit. (What with this decidedly “pre-globalization” flavor, if Sayers were to return from the dead to write a mystery in the days of Brexit, what sounds would sh [...]

I can't imagine reading Busman's Honeymoon for the mystery. By this point, the mystery is decidedly secondary to the characters and their relationship -- the pace is slow, and domestic details abound. I think we might learn more about Peter and Bunter than we do in any other book from how they behave in this one -- but much as I love it, I can completely understand why people who don't have any attachment to the characters (whether through not reading the previous books or just not caring for th [...]

(view spoiler)[ Bettie's Books (hide spoiler)]

This is fairly spectacular.Seriously, I loved everything about this. I lost count of the number of times I realized I was sitting there grinning like a fool while reading this.First, the epistolary-type excerpts at the start are everything I've ever wanted. The Dowager Duchess (and her relationship with Harriet) is my favourite. I love how this continues where Gaudy Night left off, and makes it really very obvious that Peter and Harriet have both made their relationship a choice. I love the symm [...]

SoLord Peter finally gets the girl. Well, we knew that at the end of Gaudy Nightwhat with them kissing madly in the middle of Oxford and all. But this one seals the deal. The book begins with the details of the months leading up to the wedding, the wedding itself, and on to the honeymoon. Not that Sayers is so gauche as to reveal ALL about the wedding night, but it's abundantly obvious that our favorite lord and his new lady have quite a nice time of it.The mystery fun begins the next day when t [...]

I've never read one of Sayers' books before. It's not at all what I expected, especially the ending. From what I've read about these books, I expected "Pip pip", "Quite, old boy", and a main character who was a blithering idiot. What I got was a real person, not a caricature. Lord Peter Wimsey loves his new wife deeply, and actually THINKS about how he feels. His declaration to Harriet is one of the most tender offerings of devotion I've ever read. Harriet's no slouch, either. In addition to gre [...]

Oh, frabjous day! At long last, Dorothy L. Sayer's marvelous Lord Peter Wimsey novels have been released in in ebook form. I say this as someone who has at least one copy of all the novels and short story collections in her house (sometimes two because one copy has simply been read to death), but having the books easily and conveniently available wherever I go is a joy.Sayers called the book "A love story with detective interruptions" and that it is. Lord Peter has finally won Harriet Vane, but [...]

Where I got the book: my bookshelf. Harriet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey are married at last, and have purchased an old house in the country where they intend to honeymoon. They arrive to find that the previous owner hasn't put things in order as he promised, and find out (mercifully AFTER the wedding night) that there's a good reasonThis novel was based on a stage play that Sayers wrote with a friend (presumably to capitalize on the popularity of Gaudy Night, the previous Wimsey/Vane book.) You c [...]

When I have had a really dirty day and want to do no more than curl up with a glass of wine and a whacking good who dunnit, then it has to be Dorothy L Sayers. Ah, Lord Peter Wimsy, you either love him or loathe him! I've always loved him, and I particularly like this book because it is not your average crime novel.Oh sure, you have a pair of newly-weds, an old house in the country, a cast of eccentric characters from the bumbling vicar to the twittery spinster to the police inspector who likes [...]

Even though I'm giving this five stars, I do rather agree with those of you who didn't like it as well as you expected. It's just that the good parts are SO GOOD. The ending in particular means the book NEEDS five stars.Overall, though, there was too much time spent on villagers and I didn't like them as well as I often like Sayers's side characters. I just wanted to get back to Peter and Harriet!But ohhh, the bits we DID get of them were so great. (view spoiler)[And seeing the Dowager's perspec [...]

Brilliant, as ever. An intriguing murder intrudes upon Peter and Harriet's honeymoon. Dorothy Sayers knew how to plot a mystery and she made an excellent sleuth in Peter. A very enjoyable reread.

সুলিখিত, কিন্তু মোটের উপর, একরকমের বাজে।ডরোথি সেয়ার্স তাঁর উইমসি থ্রিলারদের জন্য বিখ্যাতের বাড়া, আমি অবশ্য এর আগে তাঁর ক্লাউডস অফ উইটনেস পড়ে মোটামুটি হতাশ হইছিলাম। এইবারও তেমন কোনো ব্যত্য� [...]

Own and Kindle.Perhaps my favorite LPW to this point.

Dorothy L. Sayers created a memorable sleuth in the patrician Lord Peter Wimsey, whom she envisioned as a cross between the debonair Fred Astaire and the wooly-headed Bertie Wooster. Like the latter, Lord Peter's frequently rescued by his man, Bunter; unlike either, Lord Peter conceals a perspicacious mind and an overly sentimental heart underneath his frivolous exterior. Nearly a century later, mystery lovers like myself still enjoy Sayers' mystery novels.That said, Sayers, while enjoyable, doe [...]

Busman’s Honeymoon, or: the Wimseys will never, ever catch a break.Honestly, despite the fact that it is a murder investigation, this one is fun. It has plenty of Peter-Harriet banter, plenty of Bunter being the ridiculously amazing manservant that he is, and plenty of heart as well. Peter and Harriet have finally got married, and they’re letting each other in, and Busman’s Honeymoon sees their first hiccups of married life — where Peter’s work as a detective makes Harriet feel like a [...]

Highly disappointing.The set up has Lord Peter Wimsey enjoying his honeymoon with Harriet Vane, but finding a body in their honeymoon home. The main problem is that is takes over a hundred pages of the book to find the body and before that is a kind of sub-Evelyn Waugh examination of upper class manners. (Although she can turn the odd good phrase, Sayers lacks Waugh's wit.)The pace does not improve once the body is found and this book really is a less than compulsive read.Sayers is regarded as o [...]

Probably my favorite of the series. Sayers wasn't a one-trick writer, all of her books are different. This one, covering Lord Peter's wedding and the few days following, is a simple mystery with a limited cast. It focuses on Peter and Harriet and is a delight to read. I think it's a very satisfying end to the series. Just be sure to read Strong Poison, Have His Carcase and Gaudy Night first so you can really enjoy it. :)

As usual with a Sayers book, there are many literary quotes and intellectual jokes. I always enjoy her stories.

I love Lord Peter! I always have ever since I watched the Ian Carmichael series in the 1970s. I even liked the Edward Petherbridge series, though much less. It is remarkable as you get to see Lord Peter fall in love. However, for some crazy reason, they've never done Sayers' honeymoon escapade for the lucky couple. But I did get to finally see it this past weekend as the play was performed by the Taproot Theatre in Seattle. So, my mom and I re-read the book first. Of course, the book is so much [...]

I have no idea why I'm so infatuated with Lord Peter Wimsey. He's arrogant, prudish and often guilty of behaving in a terribly condescending manner to those he feels are beneath him in social status. He has no qualms about flaunting his money, his social status, his intelligence and his impeccable good taste in everything from expensive port to the proper attire for an afternoon in the country. I'm sure that in real life he would be insufferable, but in the world of fiction he's the one man I wo [...]

"We can’t pick and choose. Whoever suffers, we must have the truth. Nothing else matters.” This story opened like a farce compared to the previous serious detective tale, Gaudy Night, however it ends being one of the richest of the series in terms of literary allusions, humor and psychological insights. Sayers returns to the lasting impact of shell shock (World War One’s PTSD) and the personal cost of exposing criminals.“Come and hold my hand,” he said. “This point of the business al [...]

It's really true that you only pick things up when you're ready for them. I used to think reading choices explained something about the kind of person I am, but if there's something to be deduced from my reading patterns I'm not sure I want to know. I've never thought of myself as a mystery fan in the same way I think of myself as an sf/fantasy fan. I have a mainstay 'comfort list' (Doyle, Christie, Poe) and of course there are my favourite mysteries muddled with other genres (Pratchett's Night [...]

I found this first edition (in paperback) in the library of a hotel we visited this weekend--unfortunately I came across it about an hour before we checked out, so only had time to read the first act! A delight. When I first read Busman's Honeymoon I remember thinking, the morning after the wedding night, that the scene where they unblock the chimney would make a great drawing room comedy. Imagine my smugness when I discovered that in fact that's what it originally was. The first act of the play [...]

Immediately before this I read a love story masquerading as a war novel; this was a love story masquerading (albeit not very stealthily) as a murder mystery.Harriet and Peter's beautiful, complex, deeply human relationship pretty much steals the show; rather than a happily-ever-after, their romance is all about working through the past. The book is haunted - from the actual dead body in the basement of their honeymoon home (in Harriet's home village no less) to the brilliant ending which brings [...]

Busman's Honeymoon picks up the story of Peter and Harriet on the day of their wedding. There are several amusing, and sometimes sweet, letters and journal entries at the beginning that fill in the details of the time that has elapsed from the end of Gaudy Night to the big day. Peter and Harriet leave for their honeymoon at a house they have purchased near where Harriet lived as a child. The first day there one catastrophe after another occurs, culminating with the discovery of the former owner [...]