2007 Book Log #66: Gaudy Night, by Dorothy L. Sayers

Gaudy Night, the latest of my forays into the redoubtable Peter Wimsey series, is definitely the most substantial of all the ones I've read--and it's really more of a Harriet Vane tale than a Peter Wimsey one, since Peter doesn't really come on camera until the last third of the book. But I've got to say, with this novel Harriet Vane is now well and thoroughly enshrined as Best Handled Mary Sue in a Series Ever in my brain. ;) It is, after all, not many a Mary Sue that not only does not swoop in and save the day with her brilliance, but instead is fallible enough to screw up, smart enough to know when she's screwed up, and wise enough to accept help from the best possible quarter--even if that quarter happens to be the man who's been proposing to her like clockwork for the last five years, and in whom she herself has been vigorously denying her own interest.

The romantic advancement between Harriet and Peter was at least for me the primary appeal of this story, but definitely not the only one. Sayers does a wonderful job setting up the academic environment of the Oxford College of Shrewsbury, and there are several memorable characters scattered throughout the plot, not the least of which is Peter's young cousin (ETA: please do not hold my failure to remember his proper relationship to Peter as a strike against the character's memorability, and thanks to motherofpearl for the correction) nephew, the viscount Saint-George. A very pleasant read overall. Four stars.