Kaethe

Wimsey makes an appearance, but this is definitely Harriet Vane's story. She's gone to see some old classmates and attend the opening of a new building in her college at Oxford, fully prepared to have a difficult time as the graduate-who-was-on-trial-for-murder, and a notoriously "fallen" woman who's lover was murdered. Almost a hundred years later I find it hard to imagine what Vane would have been up against, thankfully, Sayers takes pains to tell the reader. The whole book is an examination as to whether it is worthwhile to educate women, whether they should remain celibate, whether it is possible for them to have careers and husbands (let alone children) without slighting either, whether there can be such a thing as a marriage of equals. There's rather too much of Freudian interpretation on personal repression, and the harm of a college full of women with pent-up passion, but only because the pendulum has swung the other way. There's also a fair amount on the business of writing and publishing, both for the bestseller and the academic markets, which hasn't changed much, really.

If I were grading just on the mystery I wouldn't give it more than a three, but Sayers, among the first woman to receive an Oxford degree, really knows what she's writing about, and as a bit of social history this earns a 10 out of 5.

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