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...