Late Scholar

By Jill Paton Walsh

Book Overview

In Jill Paton Walsh's fourth installment in her inspired continuation of Dorothy L. Sayers's acclaimed mysteries, Lord Peter Wimsey and his detective novelist wife, Harriet Vane, revisit their beloved Oxford, where a long and literate courtship finally culminated in their engagement.

To his surprise, Lord Peter, as the Duke of Denver, has been charged with settling a dispute among the Fellows of St. Severin's College, Oxford University. At first, the stalemate seems the result of a simple difference of opinion about a valuable manuscript. Some of the Fellows regard the book as nothing but an insurance liability that 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 die unexpectedly, Lord Peter and Harriet set off on an investigation to uncover what is really going on at St. Severin's.

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

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1250068339
• ISBN13: 9781250068330
• Release Date: July 2015
• Publisher: St. Martins Press-3PL
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 0.72 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.4" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

The continuing mysteries of Lord Peter Wimsey detective series.

Gerald Wimsey, the Duke of Denver, now dead, and not another pretender to the title, left Lord Peter to become the Duke of Denver. Meanwhile, at Oxford University College of St. Severin, named after Boethius, the Warden is missing. So, it is up to the "Visitor" to help with certain decisions, including the disposition of a unique m-a-n-u-s-c-r-i-p-t. So, "Your Grace" Wimsey finds out that now he is the Visitor. First, Peter needed to find out what a visitor is. We have several overlapping mysteries, such as “the missing Warden,” why everyone is so heated up over the disposition of the m-a-n-u-s-c-r-i-p-t, and there are a few other dispatched people tossed in. The story gets convoluted by the overlying plots, but the plots are not ridiculously unreasonable. If you are astute, all the clues are there. Aside from the plots, Jill Paton Walsh includes all the sentimental Oxford history of Peter and Harriet and matches, if not exceeds, Dorothy L. Sayers' originals. I read the hard copy, which is best for keeping in the library for future reading.