Gaudy Night
By Dorothy L. Sayers

In this elegantly written thriller-romance set in the 1930s, Harriet Vane is a writer romantically pursued by Lord Peter Wimsey, an aristocratic amateur detective who has cleared her of a murder charge. She resists his marriage proposal because she fears that his having saved her—and his enormous wealth—will make her indebted to him. Together they track down a vandal who has struck at her old college. Having succeeded in this partnership of equals, Harriet is convinced that she should get over herself and marry this obviously perfect man. I turned to it in a moment of despair last fall, as a kind of particularly delectable brain candy.