12 Reasons the Lord Peter Wimsey Mysteries Should be on Your 2017 Reading List

From cover of Busman’s Honeymoon by Dorothy L. Sayers. Image via Open Road Media, digital publisher.

12. A Touch of Romance

So many of the great detective and mystery novels are just straight-up mystery novels. (Of course, there are exceptions — there always are.) At this point, a novel that incorporates multiple genres just feels a bit more modern and readable, though. Fortunately, Sayers has accommodated us as modern readers by including some notes of romance and relationships in her novels.

Enter Harriet Vane. We’ll talk more about her as this list goes on — because we really want to keep talking about her, trust — but we’ll focus here on her initial appearance. Strong Poison sees her accused of murdering her lover. (Yes, she makes it through to appear in later novels. No, we will not tell you how, why, or anything more, because this is about as close as we’ll get to spoiling anything.) However, our hero actually proposes marriage to her in Strong Poison. Rather than fall into his arms, though, Harriet turns him down. Instead, she weaves in and out of the succeeding novels, giving just as good as she gets in conversations with his lordship.

In short, the love story doesn’t feel forced, perhaps because it has a long time to actually develop on both sides of the equation. The same is true of the story of Detective Inspector Parker, who ends up romancing Lady Mary Wimsey. It’s perhaps a bit more “off-screen”, shall we say, than Peter and Harriet, but that doesn’t make it any less interesting.