Busman's Honeymoon

infobox Book |
name = Busman's Honeymoon
title_orig =
translator =


image_caption = Recent US paperback edition cover
author = Dorothy L. Sayers
cover_artist =
country = UK
language = English
series = Lord Peter Wimsey
genre = Mystery, Detective novel
publisher = Gollancz
release_date = 1937
media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback)
pages =
isbn = NA
preceded_by = Gaudy Night
followed_by = In the Teeth of the Evidence

"Busman's Honeymoon" is a 1937 novel by Dorothy L. Sayers, her eleventh (and last) featuring Lord Peter Wimsey. It is the fourth and last novel to feature Harriet Vane.

Plot introduction

Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry and go to spend their honeymoon at the country house, Talboys, which he has bought as a present for her.What is supposed to be a break from their usual routine of solving crimes (him) and writing about them (her) turns into an investigation of how the man from whom Lord Peter bought Talboys ended up dead at the bottom of the cellar steps with his head bashed in.

Explanation of the novel's title

A "busman's holiday" is when a man who drives a bus for a living would spend his holiday travelling somewhere on a bus, so for him it's no break from his usual routine. By association anyone who holidays by doing his normal job is taking a "busman's holiday".

Plot summary

After an engagement of some months following the events at the end of "Gaudy Night", the story of which is told in the first few pages in letter form, Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry. They plan to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old country house Wimsey has bought for Harriet, to evade the excited press coverage.

They are surprised to find the house locked and not prepared for them. They gain access and spend the night there, but next morning discover the owner, Noakes, dead in the cellar with head injuries. The quiet honeymoon is ruined as a murder investigation begins and the Press arrive.

Noakes was an unpopular man, a miser and (it turns out) a blackmailer. He was assumed to be rich, though it transpires that he was bankrupt and planning to flee his creditors with the cash paid for Talboys. The house was locked and bolted when the newlyweds arrived, and medical evidence seems to rule out an accident, so it seems he was attacked in the house and died later, having somehow locked up after his attacker. Suspects include Noakes's niece and the local police constable, who was one of his blackmail victims.

Peter and Harriet’s relationship, always complex and painfully negotiated, is resolved during the process of catching the murderer and bringing him to justice. The killer turns out to be the gardener. He planned to marry Noakes' niece and access the fortune he believed she would inherit from her uncle. He set a delayed-action booby-trap involving a weighted plant pot on a chain, triggered by his employer opening the radio cabinet after locking up for the night. Wimsey’s reaction to the case – his guilt at condemning a man to hanging; his attempts to help the murderer; the return of his shell-shock – dominate the final chapter of the book. Initially he withdraws from Harriet in an attempt to cope on his own. However, in a touching and emotional last scene, he comes to her and accepts the help and support of an equal partner in getting through the hour of Crutchley’s execution. His last word in the book, "Damn!", echoes the "Damn!" which is his first utterance in the first Wimsey novel, "Whose Body?"

Characters in "Busman's Honeymoon"

*Lord Peter Wimsey – protagonist, an aristocratic amateur detective
*Harriet Vane, now Lady Peter Wimsey – protagonist, a mystery writer, wife of Lord Peter
*Mervyn Bunter – Lord Peter's manservant
*Honoria Lucasta, Dowager Duchess of Denver – Lord Peter's mother
*Noakes – previous owner of Talboys and murder victim
*Miss Agnes Twitterton – niece of the murdered man
*Frank Crutchley – a motor mechanic and gardener
*Mrs Martha Ruddle – neighbour of Noakes and his cleaning lady
*Bert Ruddle – her son
*Inspector Kirk – a police inspector
*Joseph Sellon – a police constable

Literary significance and criticism

"Not near the top of her form, but remarkable as a treatment of the newly wedded and bedded pair of eccentrics ... with Bunter in the offing and three local characters, chiefly comic. Peter's mother -- Dowager Duchess of Denver -- Peter's sister, John Donne, a case of vintage port, and the handling of "corroded sut" provide plenty of garnishing for an indifferent murder, even if we weren't also given an idea of Lord Peter's sexual tastes and powers under trying circumstances."Barzun, Jacques and Taylor, Wendell Hertig. "A Catalogue of Crime". New York: Harper & Row. 1971, revised and enlarged edition 1989. ISBN 0-06-015796-8]

Film, TV or theatrical adaptations

"Busman's Honeymoon" first saw the light of day as a stage play by Sayers and Muriel St. Clare Byrne, which opened in December 1936.A 1940 film version, based as much on the play as on the novel, starred Robert Montgomery as Peter and Constance Cummings as Harriet. The movie was released in the United States as "Haunted Honeymoon".

References