Strong Poison

The novel in which dashing amateur sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey first encounters his formidable future partner in love and crime-solving: the mystery novelist Harriet Vane.

Noted crime writer Harriet Vane claims to have been purchasing fatal poisons under assumed names for an entirely innocent reason: as research for her next novel. Unfortunately for her, the purchases occurred just before her former lover was murdered by arsenic--and she was apparently the last person to see him alive.

Lord Peter Wimsey, amateur sleuth extraordinaire, is initially drawn to the case by curiosity, but upon visiting Harriet in prison he becomes convinced of her innocence—and falls in love with her. Harriet’s first trial ends in a hung jury, and Peter must race against time to find the real killer before his beloved’s second trial concludes.“Sayers brought to the detective novel originality, intelligence, and wit. She gave it a new style and a new direction, and she did more than almost any other writer of her age to make the genre intellectually respectable.” —P. D. JamesDOROTHY L. SAYERS (1893-1957) was an English poet, writer, and student of classical languages. She was one of the first women to be awarded a degree by Oxford University and later worked as a copywriter at an ad agency. She was best known for her mystery novels and for her translation of Dante's Divine Comedy.