The Late Scholar: Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane Investigate

Jill Paton Walsh · Dorothy L. Sayers

Jun 2014 · Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane Book 4 · Sold by Minotaur Books

About this ebook

When a dispute among the Fellows of St. Severin's College, Oxford University, reaches a stalemate, Lord Peter Wimsey discovers that as the Duke of Denver he is "the Visitor"—charged with the task of resolving the issue. It is time for Lord Peter and his detective novelist wife, Harriet, to revisit their beloved Oxford, where their long and literate courtship finally culminated in their engagement and marriage.

At first, the dispute seems a simple difference of opinion about a valuable manuscript that some of the Fellows regard as nothing but an insurance liability, which should be sold to finance a speculative purchase of land. The voting is evenly balanced. The Warden would normally cast the deciding vote, but he has disappeared. And when several of the Fellows unexpectedly die as well, Lord Peter and Harriet set off on an investigation to uncover what is really going on at St. Severin's.

With this return in The Late Scholar to the Oxford of Gaudy Night, which many readers regard as their favorite of Sayers's original series, Jill Paton Walsh at once revives the wit and brilliant plotting of the Golden Age of detective fiction.

About the author

Jill Paton Walsh (1937-2020) was an award-winning author of many books for children, young adults, and adults including The Green Book, A Parcel of Patterns, the Booker Prize shortlisted Knowledge of Angels, and the Whitbread Prize winner The Emperor’s Winding Sheet. She completed Dorothy L. Sayers’ unfinished Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane mystery manuscript, the international bestseller Thrones, Dominations, and continued Sayers’ series with A Presumption of Death, The Attenbury Emeralds, and The Late Scholar. In 1996, Walsh was awarded a CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire) for services to literature.

Dorothy L. Sayers (1983-1957), the greatest of the golden age detective novelists, was one of the first women to be awarded a degree by Oxford University. Her aristocratic detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, became one of the most popular fictional heroes of the twentieth century, but she considered her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy to be her best work.