It has been said that Sayers fans either love Harriet Vane or detest her, and I’m in the first camp. To me they are all five-star reads, but “Carcase” has the most puzzling mystery, where the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ keep pointing in different directions.
“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.
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Reviewed in the United States on January 23, 2021
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2021
Dorothy Sayers is a hit or a miss for me and after reading 3 of her novels and a few of her short stories, I now know why. I really enjoyed Strong Poison and this one (Have His Carcase) but I didn’t really like Gaudy Night so much. Unfortunately, her strongest points as an author (and most often what people love about her) are what keep her books from being included in my favorites.
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.
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.
Images in this review
Reviewed in the United States on July 15, 2019
Reviewed in the United States on April 9, 2023
Top reviews from other countries
Marguerite
Lord Peter and Harriet Vane, together as sleuths at last
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 16, 2021
John Edward Stokoe
Absolutely whizzo old lad, a jolly good read.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 16, 2023
