Book #2: Busman's Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers

I think this and Gaudy Night are my two favorite of Sayers's murder mysteries that I've read. This is also the last one I'm planning on reading, at least for a while, because I'm eager to move on to some of the other books I have on my list (at some point, eventually--we have so much going on that I'm not getting much reading time in lately). But I felt like I had to read about Harriet and Peter's marriage and honeymoon to feel like I've finished off their relationship arc over the books I've read. As you can guess by the title, Harriet and Peter go on their honeymoon and get involved in solving a murder mystery when a corpse is found in the basement of the home they're staying in (after they've already slept there a night!). The mystery is complex--they have to try to figure out why or how the man was killed without basically any clues, since they'd disrupted the whole evidence scene when moving into the house. But they of course figure out the whole scheme in the end.

I really liked how this book kind of introduced Peter and Harriet into a small hamlet in England (where they're honeymooning) and brings the motley crew of characters who you would expect to find in such a place. I also, of course, liked the honesty and difficulty that the two honeymooners have with each other and how they begin to navigate marriage together, and how being married instead of just friends/engaged affects or changes their relationship (for better and for worse). I think it's so interesting how both Peter and Harriet are so flawed, both of them being almost too independent for marriage and too messed up by past lives to make it work--but they somehow do. I did feel that Harriet made quite an abrupt about-face in this book from previous ones, where she repeatedly ignored and resented and refused Peter's advances and proposals, to now being completely besotted and in love without any problems with that. Oh well, I guess it could happen that way.

Overall, this book had a great mystery in it, and it helped me to finish off the Peter Wimsey storyline that I've been interested in, so now I'm ready to move on to something else.