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Busman's Honeymoon (Lord Peter Wimsey, #13)

Dorothy L. Sayers

Start date: December 1, 2016

Finish date: December 31, 2016

Discussion: Group Challenges

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Group Challenges

* Sept 25: The Mystery of the Blue Train (1928) by Agatha Christie
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What Members Thought

Jul 09, 2023 Adrian rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: det-dl-sayers, detectives-buddy-lpw-2022-23, zz-e-book

Review tomorrow

Lord Peter Group Read 2022/23

Well it took me long enough to get around to this, such that at least 5 people liked my "Review Tomorrow" review !!
Anyway, this is the first of the Lord Peter novels that I have given 5 stars to, although I have been commenting that they were in my 'umble opinion getting better each time.

The wedding of Lord Peter and his long term sort of girlfriend Harriet Vane takes place in this novel, however the book starts with letters going backwards and forwar Review tomorrow

Lord Peter Group Read 2022/23

Well it took me long enough to get around to this, such that at least 5 people liked my "Review Tomorrow" review !!
Anyway, this is the first of the Lord Peter novels that I have given 5 stars to, although I have been commenting that they were in my 'umble opinion getting better each time.

The wedding of Lord Peter and his long term sort of girlfriend Harriet Vane takes place in this novel, however the book starts with letters going backwards and forwards between Lord Peter, his mother, the Dowager duchess, Harriet and various other people. I found the letters from the dowager especially witty and the most interesting as they rambled all over the place. We then get the arrangements for the wedding, and the secrecy around them. Here I loved the way the real plans are kept from Lord Peter's sister in law who has been trying to organise everything and to boss everyone about.

Anyway, with the help of Bunter, everything of course goes to plan, that is Peter and Harriet's plan, much to the annoyance of his sister in law. And soon after the wedding at Oxford they are off to their secret location for their honeymoon. Peter has brought a farmhouse in a village near to where Harriet was brought up as a child and all is supposed to be ready for them to open d some idyllic time together. Of course this is not to be, as the book name suggests.
Excellent descriptions of the deductive processes of both Peter and Harriet, but also for the first time, the way that the post war issues (PTSD today) that Peter suffers affect his ability to deduce but also accuse people, and how he feels after a case has been solved, almost as if he feels guilty for finding the perpetrator.
I really liked how Harriet discovers how Bunter came into Peter's life and what he has done for his friend , colleague, his ex superior officer and ultimately his boss. Plus how Harriet starts by walking a fine line in her treatment /interaction with Bunter until they both realise they are united in their love for the flawed human being that is Lord Peter.
A truly excellent book, both as a mystery whodunnit and also as a description of two people finding their way in the first steps of marriage , knocking the rough edges off that don't fit together and finding what works and what doesn't.
As ever there are some brilliantly funny moments, Bunter coping with a nosey housekeeper who constantly tries to interfere, Bunter going apoplectic over the shaking of the Port bottles, Lord Peter and Harriet finding one of their chimney pots in a nearby village, and having to come to terms with all their furniture being removed as it turns out not to belong to them. ...more

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