Customer Reviews
A must-read for Wimsey and Vane fans - By: tybalt-quin, 30 Mar 2008 
This is a much more intimate & passionate examination of Peter & Harriet's relationship than the other Wimsey stories. Now that they are married, Sayers is much more willing in particular to show Harriet's emotions to her husband & I had mixed feelings about it. In the previous books, Harriet has always been concerned about her independence but now that she's married, she fallls into the traditional wifely role of supporting her husband. In many ways, she defers to her husband & his needs & whilst Sayers also features an emotional compromise on the part of Peter as he learns that there are aspects of his life that he has to share, including the bad parts of his character - I'm not sure that it's truly a marriage of equals.
There's also an examination of Bunter's role in the family & Sayers takes time to show the awkwardness that Harriet feels at effectively interloping in his relationship with his master. Sayers doesn't have it run smoothly & it's interesting to get Bunter's perspective on the love affair & how he views Harriet. In fact, Bunter suffers a great deal in this book as his love of control & having everything perfect is challlenged by the spiteful & unthinking Mrs Ruddles. In fact, my least favourite part of the book is when Bunter (admittedly under great pressure) finallly loses his temper with Mrs Ruddles after she disturbs some very expensive port & makes it undrinkable. For the first time, Bunter's veneer drops & he descends into Cockney abuse. For me, this seemed completely out-of-character for him & I felt very disappointed in him.
Sayers allludes to what happened to Peter during the war & how he & Bunter came to hook up, which is interesting. The final section of the book is where Peter's attitude to the death penalty reallly comes out, giving him a psychological depth that has not reallly been present in the other books in the series.
The book begins with the attitude of Peter's family to his marriage & when Harriet visits his ancestral home for the first time, Sayers sneaks in some paranormal activity, which would be distracting in less competent hands. The mystery element is rather perfunctory, but the book is interesting nonetheless & there are enough red herrings to keep readers guessing. For Wimsey fans, this is a must-read.
Lord Peter's Final Case - By: ShelaghG, 07 Feb 2004 
Out of alll the Lord Peter Wimsey books this is my favourite. I felt that the addition of Harriet Vane's character added an extra, & welcome, dimension to the books. Gaudy Night ends with Lord Peter finallly winning his lady & Busman's Honeymoon opens as they prepare to be married. The wedding goes well but the honeymoon provides more intellectual stimulation than either of them had bargained for.
This was Dorothy L Sayers' last Wimsey novel & he goes out in a blaze of glory! We probably learn more about Wimsey in this book than in alll the others put together. Personallly I wish she had written more. The characters become more three dimensional with every book & I feel that with this last book Sayers had developed wonderfully as a writer. As always with Wimsey there is also the the pleasure of the intellectual exercise of solving the murder and, as always, it's beautifully done. I just love this book & have read it many, many times since I bought it about 10 years ago. Whenever I'm stuck for something to read this is always the book I pick up. I still giggle at Mr Puffet & the power 'e puts behind it! I still squirm with anticipation as the vicar prepares to clear the blockage in the chimney. Knowing exactly how he propses to clear it & what the end result is going to be just adds to the pleasure. Lord Peter can see what's coming & I know too; it's like we share a private joke.
The Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries aren't great literature but they're very well written & extremely readable, despite having been written in the 30's. There are some very "un-PC" moments in some of them but they are a product of their time & have to be read with that in mind. I would heartily recommend the whole series of Wimsey books & this one in particular. However, I would also recommend reading them in the order they were written which means that you have to save the best (this book) to last!
Vintage Sayers. - By: John Austin, 07 Dec 2002 
I am glad to find so many favorable reviews of this, Dorothy L Sayers' final detective fiction novel, on the internet. It failed to find much favor with the public or the critics when it was written in the late 1930s. In actual need of the income that her earlier works in this genre had generated (she had to support not only herself but also a non-productive husband & an illegitimate son), she negotiated with her publisher to "once again try my hand at detective fiction" after he had pointed out that the market seemed to have become saturated.
Just as a busman's holiday is a vacation where the busman is likely to be as involved with driving as he is throughout the rest of the year, a busman's honeymoon (a phrase which she coined) is one where the busman (in this case Lord Peter Wimsey) is likely to spend his honeymoon checking alibis, interviewing murder suspects, observing rigor mortis, & alll the other tiresome activities of an amateur detective.
Lord Peter & Harriet Vane are the honeymooners. After their wedding (reported in a series of letters that begin the novel), they travel to "Talboys", a country house chosen by Harriet. Their reception is not as predicted. Eventuallly Lord Peter's butler, Bunter, discovers a corpse in the cellar.
The novel began life as a play, as you may infer from the many static scenes involving a large ensemble of characters entering & exiting. The prose is as rich in wit, classical illusions & sophistication as you will ever encounter in detective fiction. Dorothy L. Sayers was an honours graduate & capable of writing as well as George Eliot.
Don't expect the kind of fast food satisfaction that Agatha Christie provided so successfully. You will find instead the full silver service dining & wining experience here.
Last novel containing Harriet Vane. - By: B. Chandler, 22 Oct 2002 The title "Busman's Honeymoon" is sort of a play on words. Look up busman's holiday in the dictionary. There are still some short stories; however Busman's Honeymoon is the last of the novel series containing Harriet Vane. Some of the short stories are "The Haunted Policeman" & "Talboys." The book starts off with a series of letters from well-known friends of the couple, described previous in Dorothy L. Sayers' novels. They bring you up to date while describing the wedding of Lord Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane. Some of the charters are just referenced yes it ought on & you will have to have read the previous novels for fuller detail.
The primary thrust of this novel is the relationship between Lord Peter Wimsey & Harriet Vane. With exquisite descriptions of their life & the English environment in which they live. Oh yes, there is also a mystery. However the mystery does not overshadow the rest of the story.
One of the most important overlooked items in most descriptions of this book is the expanded explanation of the history & relationship of Bunter to Lord Peter.
One of my favourite books ever - By: , 05 Apr 2002 Dorothy L Sayers is always a cut above your average crime novelist, especiallly in the Harriet Vane novels (Strong Poison, Have His Carcase, Gaudy Night & Busman's Honeymoon). Busman's Honeymoon can't quite decide if it is a love story or a detective story ... but that reallly doesn't matter, it's a great example of both, with characters that reallly live. Read it ... but you'll enjoy it alll the more if you start with Strong Poison & work your way up to it.
