Customer Reviews

Have his carcase

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The second of Sayers' Wimsey/Vane mysteries, "Have His Carcase" never quite gripped me the way "Strong Poison" did. The earlier mystery placed Harriet Vane in jeopardy should Lord Peter prove unable to exonerate her. In this book there is no such risk-factor, consequently the story is little more than a mental exercise regimen for two not-so-old, not-so-dear friends (although they do get quite a bit better acquainted on this outing). The book is also a few chapters too long (or short, depending on your point of view); "the evidence of the mannequin," for instance, made only a minor contribution to the denouement and could have been eliminated - or it could have been better capitalized upon and drawn in several of the women characters as suspects. The murder plot is definitely overcomplicated and would likely never occur in real life ... unless you wanted to commit a murder that would baffle the police and almost thwart Wimsey and Vane as well (in which case it's *exactly* what you'd do).

For its several shortcomings, "Carcase" is still a very enjoyable read. The verbal sparring between Wimsey and Vane is priceless. Vane's perspective as a mystery novelist adds a bit of behind-the-scenes color. The local police force occasionally comes off a bit too indulgent of the amateur investigators, but it was very nice that they were portrayed as neither blustering know-it-alls nor no-nothing bumpkins. Bunter's quest through London involves some of the best written pacing I've ever read.

A couple final points: The word "carcase" in the title would nowadays be written as "carcass." Before reading the book I thought it had something to do with those large trunks that used to get strapped onto the back of cars. The title actually refers to the fact that before a murder investigation can go forward, the police need to have the body (or its remains) at hand. Point two: Don't read "the evidence of the cipher" (Chapter 28) when you are tired; while it provides a very good look at a cryptographer's work, it carries with it the potential risk of causing your head to explode. Be careful, you really wouldn't want that to happen. Trust me.

Dorothy L Sayers provided some of the great treasures to be found in the so-called "Golden Age of Detective Fiction". A classical scholar with a formidable intellect, she was an eminent practitioner and an eloquent critic of detective fiction. Her feisty, detective fiction writing character, Harriet Vane, and her aristocratic, monocled, amateur detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, may be found together for the second time in her 1932 novel "Have His Carcase".

On a walking holiday, while recovering from a court case in which she was alleged to have killed her lover, Harriet Vane discovers the body of a man. It is lying on rocks on a beach, close to low tide level. The evidence suggests suicide. After taking photographs with her camera, finding a cut throat razor and removing a shoe from the corpse, Harriet vainly tries to enlist help in moving the body before it is washed away by the incoming tide. The local police force is alerted and so is Lord Peter Wimsey.

This is a long novel. Interest focuses not only on the solution to the mystery but also on the likelihood of Wimsey succeeding with his wish to marry Harriet. There is witty dialogue, there are fulsome reports from a range of eccentric characters, there are descriptions of the human anatomy and how it responds to the throat being cut, there is an interminable attempt to decode a ciphered letter, and there are classical quotations provided at the start of each chapter. There is little dramatic tension, no suspense, and no thrills. Dorothy L Sayers was a cultivated, fluent writer, sometimes boring but never banal.

If your tolerance of boredom is low, but your credit balance at the bank is high, then invest in the audio tape reading of the book provided by Ian Carmichael. English actor Ian Carmichael has had great success associated with various adaptations of the novels of Dorothy L Sayers. He brings wonderful energy and gusto to this full-length reading, enough to keep you delighted for more than fifteen hours.

I recommend this book primarily because it contains Lord Wimsey and Harriet's solution of a Playfair cipher.

Most readers will recall Sherlock Holmes' solution of the Dancing Men cipher (recounted in Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Dancing Men) and Legrand's solution of Captain Kidd's cipher (recounted in Poe's The Gold Bug). Both of these are simple substitution ciphers, easily broken if one knows certain facts about the English language, such as the order of letter frequency (E, T, O, A, N . . .) The Playfair cipher, on the other hand, is an order of magnitude more difficult to solve. It is a digram cipher, using pairs of letters (there are 26x26=676 possible digrams) instead of individual letters to encrypt the message. Tables of digram frequencies are of little use in decrypting short messages. Other methods are required. The mechanics are explained in the text.

The Playfair cipher was used operationally in WWII and to this day remains unsolvable as a one-time, short message, unknown-keyword cipher, unless you can guess one of the plaintext words. Wimsey and Harriet were lucky that they were dealing with an amateur.

Sayer's audacious trump of Conan Doyle and Poe caught my attention. The rest of the book is, to put it mildly, well-plotted. There is evidence here that native British intelligence far exceeds what one finds in the colonies. No wonder Sayers is so popular.

All of Dorothy Sayers' mysteries are worth reading. She has a command of English and a story-telling ability that makes her, in my opinion, one of the two greatest mystery writers of the twentieth century. Most of Ms. Sayers' mysteries feature Lord Peter, second son of the Duke of Denver. He is one of the most delightful characters in English literature and well worth meeting in any of Ms. Sayers books. Most of the Lord Peter mysteries stand alone and can be read without worrying about sequence. However four of the mysteries involve Harriet Vane, and for maximum enjoyment, those four mysteries should be read in order. Strong Poison describes the first meeting between Harriet and Lord Peter. Have His Carcase explores the relationship between the two of them as they investigate the death of a man whose body Harriet discovers while hiking along a deserted beach. The interaction between the two of them can best be understood and appreciated if Strong Poison is read first. Have His Carcase may be the least enjoyable of the four romance-mysteries involving Harriet, but this book leads to the final two books in the series, and those two books are the finest romance-mysteries ever written.

The reviews I value most on amazon are those for audio books, because not only does the quality of the writing need to be ascertained, but also the quality of the reader -- a much more nebulus and subjective thing to assess. I have several of my favorite Sayers novels on audio, and the Petherbridge ones are my preference, despite their being abridged. David Case also does an excellent job on his narration of Whose Body. But I must add my support to the previous post which noted that Ian Carmichael can be difficult to follow. Carmichael does a decent Whimsey, but cannot bend his voice enough to create distinct characters beyond Whimsey. All too often I find myself backing up to replay episodes of conversation because I can't keep track of WHO is talking -- and this is despite having read the book! I cannot recommend the Carmichael readings to those unfamilar with the original works. Start with Petherbridge instead.

My first encounter with Dorothy L. Sayers was the Mobile Mystery Theater series showing on PBS. I now have all three DVD's of the series ("Strong Poison", "Gaudy Night" and "Have His Carcase".) They never produced "Busman's Honeymoon" Dorothy sold the rights to Hollywood and BBC could not get them back. The Resulting movie is "Haunted Honeymoon"(1940)
Naturally the TV media cannot fill in all the details that you would pick up from reading the book.

So I read the book. This added more depth to the story, now I appreciate Dorothy L. Sayers more than Agatha Christie. Dorothy not only fleshes her characters out better but her side trips into philosophy and psychology make the story that much more interesting. And just when you say what is the relevance to this conversation it is wrapped up in the final solution.

This is the second of the book series. The story is complete and can be used as a stand-alone story. The notorious Harriet Vane is out for a walk and takes a nap. She wakes up and finds (you guest it) a body. If not for her trusty camera, no one would believe her. As it is the authorities think it was suicide. Wimsey thinks it is murder. Naturally everyone, especially the main suspect has an airtight alibi. The real interest is the interaction between Lord Peter and Harriet.

Strong Poison

Carcase is a variant spelling of carcass. To be tried for murder is good publicity for a crime writer. Harriet Vane was busy.

In June Harriet went on a walking tour. On a beach she discovered a corpse. The tide was coming in. She was eight miles from Wilvercombe. Harriet took pictures of the discovery, of particular interest since the body was liable to be carried away on the tide. After walking six miles she called the police and the newspapers to report the existence of the dead body.

Lord Peter arrived to meet Harriet at her hotel, much to her surprise. A journalist had rung him up, it seems. The dead man had been a professional dancing partner, a police inspector told Harriet and Peter. A Mrs. Weldon, friend of the deceased man, sought Harriet's company. She claimed she and the decedent were to be married.

The murder weapon was an Endicott razor with an ivory handle. Wimsey learned from a Mr. Endicott that ivory-handled ones were in short supply. The notion that a bearded man had in his possession an old-fashioned razor of good quality presented a problem.

When the body came to shore there was an inquest, and the investigation of shifting identities began. As in real life, the story thread meanders.

The most interesting aspect of this book is the relationship of Hariet Vane and Lord Peter Wimsey and the author's philosophy of female independence in which their relationship is cast.

This is a long, complex classic story which turns a lot on times and alibis all of which, of course, are completely misleading. As another reviewer has noticed, it has a marvellous cipher-breaking chapter as well as plenty more misunderstandings between poor Peter and his Harriet, who won't have him. Great twist at the end which is probably guessable if you keep your brain going while reading.

In this, the second of the Vane/Wimsey novels, the story starts with Harriet Vane walking along the seaside and finding a corpse. Death by throat-cutting. Enter Lord Peter Wimsey. He and Harriet set out to solve the mystery of who killed the seaside corpse, with help from Bunter and the local police. Sayers excels at witty dialogue, of which there is plenty between Harriet and Peter, and at overly-complicated most-unlikely murder methods. This novel also contains a cipher, which Peter and Harriet decode. This is a good read for those who are already fans of Wimsey and Vane, but the story isn't as strong as "Strong Poison" or "Guady Night."

Dorothy Sayers was far ahead of her time when she wrote the Lord Peter Wimsey mystery novels in the late 1920's and early-to-mid 1930's. She gave her prime characters hearts and souls to the point where her truly excellent mystery puzzles actually became secondary to our following the lives of people we came to know and care about through reading her books. Even her minor characters were three-dimensional and recognizable as "real" people. "Have His Carcase" is one of her best, with Lord Peter and Harriet Vane solving a fascinating mystery while carefully exploring, with the civilized delicacy of their time, their feelings for one another. I only wish Amazon had all of Sayers' mysteries available instead of just this one and one other.