Busman's Honeymoon: A Review

I finally finished Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy Sayers. It's the very last in the Lord Peter Wimsey series. I warn you here and now, this review will include spoilers for both Busman's Honeymoon and Gaudy Night so if you want to avoid those, this review is not for you.




To be honest, this book is a bit of a let-down for me. It's not that there is something wrong with the book itself. In fact, it's a perfectly respectable book in a very good series. But it comes directly after Gaudy Night, which is possibly the best "mystery" ever written and certainly the best book in the series. Moreover, it is the book where Lord Peter and Harriet actually end up with each other, after something like a four book extended courtship. To end with that, and then to begin the final book, just after Gaudy Night, with letters, mostly to and from people we have never met before and will never meet again, feels like a mis-step. This is a hard admission to make for a Sayers fan but it is true.

On the other hand, giving us the Dowager Duchess' diary is quite lovely in a certain way. For one thing, I love the Dowager Duchess. She is majorly funny. For another, she has a perspective on Peter that no one else, certainly not Harriet, has. The line about this being the "magniloquent Peter of twenty years ago" really gave me a sudden picture of the Peter of twenty years ago.

There are certainly lovely parts to the book. I like that Peter and Harriet's honeymoon is not all romance and roses. For one thing, it seems more real without being overly realistic (if that makes any sense whatsoever--they don't end up hating each other nor getting a divorce), and for another, it was the right choice for Peter and Harriet's characters. Finally, despite their difficulties, the book does end happily for them, although not for Frank Crutchley.

In the final analysis, this is a good book and one which I would certainly reccomend. It is only faulty in coming after Gaudy Night and not maintaining the absolute pitch of that book.