Part campus novel, part intricately-plotted mystery: this is Sayers’ tenth Lord Peter novel, the first told from the perspective of Harriet Vane, and undoubtedly one of her finest. (They needn’t be read in order.) When Ms. Vane returns to Oxford for her college’s reunion (the “gaudy” of the title), the festive mood on campus is threatened by an alarming outbreak of murderous threats. Sayers makes this much more than a crime novel, though it's a good one—Harriet grapples with questions of love and friendship, life and work, gender and class, and the writing life.
