The Late Scholar by Jill Paton Walsh

The Late Scholar: The New Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane Mystery; Based on the Characters of Dorothy L. Sayers by Jill Paton Walsh --- 356 pages

This is Paton Walsh's fourth Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane mystery, continuing the story of the noble sleuth and his novelist wife, but the first in which Paton Walsh ventures beyond the plots, articles and notes that Dorothy Sayers left unfinished to chart new territory for the Wimseys.

Lord Peter, who reluctantly assumed the title of Duke of Denver upon his brother's demise in The Attenbury Emeralds, is called upon to exercise the ducal hereditary authority as the "Visitor" or patron to settle a dispute among the Fellows (faculty) of St. Severin's College, Oxford University.  The College finds itself in a precarious financial position, and some of the Fellows want to sell a valuable codex or manuscript from the college library. The money from the sale of the manuscript would then be used to buy land on the outskirts of Oxford that the college can lease for development as part of the postWorld War II building boom. The lease payments will provide a steady stream of much needed income for the college.

The issue has been hotly debated for months and repeated votes have ended in stalemate. And so the Visitor is summoned to settle the dispute. But the actual situation that Peter and Harriet discover upon arrival in Oxford is far more complex. Several Fellows have suffered from a peculiar series of accidents, and one is dead from a fall down a college staircase. The Warden (Chief Adminstrator) of St. Severin's has left his post and no one seems to know where to find him. As more fatal accidents befall the Fellows, Peter and Harriet realize that some person or persons unknown seem to be choosing methods from Harriet's mystery novels to settle old grievances related to the manuscript in question.

A clever mystery and a chance for Peter and Harriet to return to Oxford with all its memories and connections, and to bring their readers with them.

Click HERE to read a recent interview with Jill Paton Walsh discussing the challenges of continuing the saga of Sayers' iconic characters.

By Its Cover by Donna Leon

By Its Cover: A Commissario Guido Brunetti Mystery by Donna Leon --- 237 pages

One afternoon in early spring, Brunetti takes a call from Patrizia Fabbiani, the director of the Biblioteca Merula, a small, private library in Venice. She has just discovered that someone has razored pages of illustrations from a number of valuable rare books, and a yet unknown number of books are missing completely from the library's collection.

Brunetti goes to investigate, and is told by Dottoressa Fabbiani, and one of her assistants, Piero Sartor, that all of the damaged books had been recently requested by a visiting American scholar, a Professor Joseph Nickerson of the University of Kansas. The first damaged book was discovered after Nickerson suddenly left the building, when Sartor went to clear away and reshelve the books that he had asked to see.

Only one other person had been in the reading room that day; a former priest, Aldo Franchini, an elderly, reclusive man who came almost daily to read the Fathers of the Church in Latin. When Brunetti investigates Nickerson's credentials he is not surprised to discover that they are forged. He learns that there is a thriving black market for rare books, and the illustrations from rare books. Further inquiry reveals that similar thefts have occurred in a number of other libraries.

The library director does not want the thefts to become public because some of the books that were vandalized or stolen were donated to the library by a wealthy and eccentric Venetian contessa (who happens to be a good friend of Brunetti's mother-in-law). The director is afraid that the Contessa will withdraw her patronage and support from the library.

The investigation seems to be at a standstill when Brunetti is notified that Franchini has been found brutally murdered in his home. At first Brunetti wonders if Franchini was murdered because he was an accidental witness to the vandalism and theft at the Merula. But a conversation with the dead man's brother puts him in possession of evidence that gives a whole new twist to the case, requiring Brunelli to look at everything and everyone in a different light.