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Have His Carcase (Lord Peter Wimsey) Paperback – October 16, 2012
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“Written with distinction and wit, and is as much as psychological story as an experiment in detection. It has all the excitement which a detective story should offer.” — The Spectator
The great Dorothy L. Sayers is considered by many to be the premier detective novelist of the Golden Age, and her dashing sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, one of mystery fiction’s most enduring and endearing protagonists. Acclaimed author Ruth Rendell has expressed her admiration for Sayers’s work, praising her “great fertility of invention, ingenuity, and wonderful eye for detail.” The second Dorothy L. Sayers classic to feature mystery writer Harriet Vane, Have His Carcase features an introduction by Elizabeth George, herself a crime fiction master. Harriet’s discovery of a murdered body on the beach before it is swept out to sea unites her once more with the indomitable Lord Peter, as together they attempt to solve a most lethal mystery, and find themselves become much closer than mere sleuthing partners in the process.
- Print length496 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherHarper Paperbacks
- Publication dateOctober 16, 2012
- Dimensions5.31 x 0.79 x 8 inches
- ISBN-100062196545
- ISBN-13978-0062196545
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A woman finds a dead body on the beach and seeks help from a man to solve the mystery.Popular highlight
THE BEST REMEDY FOR a bruised heart is not, as so many people seem to think, repose upon a manly bosom. Much more efficacious are honest work, physical activity, and the sudden acquisition of wealth.211 Kindle readers highlighted this
Editorial Reviews
Review
“A nearly perfect detective story.” — Saturday Review
“Written with distinction and wit, and is as much as psychological story as an experiment in detection. It has all the excitement which a detective story should offer.” — The Spectator
“I admire her novels. . . . She has a great fertility of invention, ingenuity and a wonderful eye for detail.” — Ruth Rendell
From the Back Cover
Mystery novelist Harriet Vane, recovering from an unhappy love affair and its most unpleasant aftermath, seeks solace on a barren beach deserted but for one notable exception: the body of a bearded young man with his throat cut. From the moment she photographs the corpse, which soon disappears with the tide, she is puzzled by a mystery that might easily have been a suicide, a murder, or a political plot. With the appearance of her dear friend Lord Peter Wimsey, however, Harriet finds yet another reason to pursue the mystery, as only the two of them can pursue it.
About the Author
Dorothy L. Sayers was born in 1893. She was one of the first women to be awarded a degree by Oxford University, and later she became a copywriter at an ad agency. In 1923 she published her first novel featuring the aristocratic detective Lord Peter Wimsey, who became one of the world's most popular fictional heroes. She died in 1957.
Product details
- Publisher : Harper Paperbacks; Reprint edition (October 16, 2012)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 496 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0062196545
- ISBN-13 : 978-0062196545
- Item Weight : 12.5 ounces
- Dimensions : 5.31 x 0.79 x 8 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #119,179 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #1,122 in Traditional Detective Mysteries (Books)
- #1,724 in Historical Mystery
- #8,246 in Literary Fiction (Books)
- Customer Reviews:
About the author
Dorothy L. Sayers (1893-1957) was a playwright, scholar, and acclaimed author of mysteries, best known for her books starring the gentleman sleuth Lord Peter Wimsey.
Born in Oxford, England, Sayers, whose father was a reverend, grew up in the Bluntisham rectory and won a scholarship to Oxford University where she studied modern languages and worked at the publishing house Blackwell's, which published her first book of poetry in 1916.
Years later, working as an advertising copywriter, Sayers began work on Whose Body?, a mystery novel featuring dapper detective Lord Peter Wimsey. Over the next two decades, Sayers published ten more Wimsey novels and several short stories, crafting a character whose complexity was unusual for the mystery novels of the time.
In 1936, Sayers brought Lord Peter Wimsey to the stage in a production of Busman's Honeymoon, a story which she would publish as a novel the following year. The play was so successful that she gave up mystery writing to focus on the stage, producing a series of religious works culminating in The Man Born to Be King (1941) a radio drama about the life of Jesus.
She also wrote theological essays and criticism during and after World War II, and in 1949 published the first volume of a translation of Dante's Divine Comedy (which she considered to be her best work).
Dorothy Sayers died of a heart attack in 1957.
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“Have His Carcase” is the second Vane/Wimsey story. Up to the addition of Harriet Vane to the series, Lord Peter Wimsey was a wealthy, charming but rather shallow character. He dabbles in mystery investigations as a hobby, as he is insatiably curious and underneath a ‘foolish-looking face’, extremely intelligent.
As he was so popular that his creator Ms. Sayers couldn’t kill him off à la Reichenbach Falls, she invented Harriet Vane, who first appears in “Strong Poison” as a defendant convicted of poisoning her Bohemian lover. Wimsey, seated in the courtroom at first just to watch, instantly became certain of two facts:
-1- Harriet Vane was innocent, and
-2- He, Wimsey, was going to marry her.
At the end of “Poison”, Lord Peter solves the ‘whodunit’ and proposes – but Harriet refuses him. A successful mystery writer herself, she is determined not to be the beggar-maid to Wimsey’s Cophetua. (Note: In the intervening period between the first and second Vane-Wimsey stories, there is the Wimsey-only “Five Red Herrings” novel.)
As “Carcase” begins, Harriet embarks on a solo walking tour along the southern coast. When she finds a dead body on a beach, she decides to do a murder investigation on her own, paralleling the police. The publicity about the corpse discovery alerts Wimsey, who rushes down to help.
“Carcase” nicely balances the complex mystery of who murdered Paul Alexei and the (very) slowly developing romance between Harriet and Lord Peter. There are numerous red herrings to lead the reader astray, and just the right amount of timetable checking – not too much (unlike “Herrings”) and not too little. There is tragic romantic illusion contrasted against an emerging 'meeting of the minds'. As always with the great writers, the side characters are memorable and well-developed, easy to imagine in the mind’s eye.
For fans new to the Wimsey stories, there are two other superb Wimsey-only novels which follow “Carcase”. The Vane romance then continues with “Gaudy Night” and its follow-up “Busman’s Honeymoon”, and the final short, “Talboys”. The Vane-Wimsey novels were later continued by author Jill Paton Walsh, who wrote four more to end the series.
BBC Television in 1987 produced an excellent mini-series of the Vane-Wimsey books 1–3, with Edward Petherbridge as Lord Peter, Harriet Walter as Harriet Vane and Richard Morant as Bunter. They could not obtain the rights to Busman’s Honeymoon, unfortunately. The series was released on DVD and is available through Amazon.
In my case, I read these novels for the mystery first. Everything else- the characters, the ambience, how detailed and well researched a thing is- while important, take second place. In all Sayers novels I’ve read (most especially Gaudy Night) the focus is on the novel and the mystery is just sort of included. They are often decently written but nothing amazing, IMHO. In that novel, more care was given to how the reader could enjoy descriptions of Oxford, student affairs, banter between the professors, etc. I appreciated it for its feminist POV but the mystery was plain shallow and petty, which prevented me from enjoying it as much as I could have.
Have His Carcase is much better than Gaudy IMHO, and while the puzzle does not begin to approach Christie, Carr or even Queen, it is still pretty well thought out and entertaining. Most importantly for me, I like how the background supports the plot and not the other way around.
Also, some issues I have with my eBook: 1) The images are missing and show a broken camera icon. This is a pretty big problem, considering that the chapters are about a cipher which I could not follow due to the missing diagrams. I hope the publisher can remedy this since it is part of the plot. 2) There is no way to access the table of contents (the button is grayed out) from the Kindle drop down menu...I have to go to the beginning of the book to get to it.
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2021
In my case, I read these novels for the mystery first. Everything else- the characters, the ambience, how detailed and well researched a thing is- while important, take second place. In all Sayers novels I’ve read (most especially Gaudy Night) the focus is on the novel and the mystery is just sort of included. They are often decently written but nothing amazing, IMHO. In that novel, more care was given to how the reader could enjoy descriptions of Oxford, student affairs, banter between the professors, etc. I appreciated it for its feminist POV but the mystery was plain shallow and petty, which prevented me from enjoying it as much as I could have.
Have His Carcase is much better than Gaudy IMHO, and while the puzzle does not begin to approach Christie, Carr or even Queen, it is still pretty well thought out and entertaining. Most importantly for me, I like how the background supports the plot and not the other way around.
Also, some issues I have with my eBook: 1) The images are missing and show a broken camera icon. This is a pretty big problem, considering that the chapters are about a cipher which I could not follow due to the missing diagrams. I hope the publisher can remedy this since it is part of the plot. 2) There is no way to access the table of contents (the button is grayed out) from the Kindle drop down menu...I have to go to the beginning of the book to get to it.
Unlike Herrings, bogged down with its train timetables and Scottish accents (Sayers even makes a joking reference to train timetables in this one—had she received complaints?), this is a much more straightforward mystery. Harriet Vane finds a dead body on a beach during a solo walking tour of the coast. She is not sure whether it is suicide or murder, though murder seems more likely. (I, for one, can’t imagine committing suicide with a razor and being able to cut my own neck through to the bone.) Anyway, Wimsey comes to help. The solution to the mystery turns on a clever idea that I am still berating myself for not having figured out much earlier. Of course, I won’t give it away here.
But what really makes this novel work much better is the characters. Vane is back and Wimsey plays a much larger role here. Their romantic banter—romantic on Wimsey’s side, at least—is fun and adds some flavor to the backstory. Bunter has his role to play. The police and suspects are all fun and well-drawn.
In the end, after bottoming out with Wimsey, I’m back on a high and ready to throw myself into the next one.