Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers Summary and Reviews
|
Our Price: $44.48 Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.24 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of Have His Carcase
Book Review: A Detestable Burden of Gratitude
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
Book Review: A great classic story with Peter Wimsey and Harriet too
Summary: 5 Stars
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.Book Review: Another cracking read!
Summary: 4 Stars
An intricate, well-paced plot full of pathos and farce. Excellent quotes used as chapter headings from "The Bride's Tragedy" and "Death's Jestbook" by T.L. Beddoes. Includes further interesting developments in the relationship between Peter and Harriett...Book Review: Brilliant, funny, and intelligent mystery
Summary: 5 Stars
I am in the process of reading this book for the third time, and find it absolutely delightful. Like all of Dorothy L Sayers' books, it is highly intelligent and very well written. Sayers has an uncanny insight into human psychology and also has a wonderful way of characterizing her characters -- even minor characters come across as intriguing and realistic. Sayers clearly did a lot of research for all her novels, and the amount of detail she packs into the descriptions makes the places and persons all the more engaging and the reader's experience all the more rewarding.
What sets this book apart from the rest, however, is that it is here that we see the relationship between Sayers' indomitable sleuth, Lord Peter Wimsey, and the young woman he saved from the gallows in Strong Poison, the amusing contrary Harriet Vane, develop and blossom into the first stages of a real love story. Although the focus is on the mystery, the Wimsey-Vane storyline is much more than a subplot. It runs through the novel and ultimately becomes just as important as the case they are working on. In Gaudy Night, one of Sayers' masterpieces in my opinion, the love story takes center stage and it is the mystery that becomes the backdrop for its unfolding.
For those who prefer mysteries to romances, however, there is nothing overly sentimental or "romancy" in the unfolding of Wimsey's and Vane's relationship. What the relationship gives Sayers is an opportunity to really gaze deeper into aspects of human psychology, and her writing is spot on. Lord Peter especially becomes a much more human character as he struggles to build a fragile relationship with Harriet, whose bruised past makes her especially prickly and sensitive to his advances.
I heartily recommend this book to all. If you get a chance to see the PBS/WGBH televised series, it is also a treat!
Book Review: Good luck, bad luck, good luck, bad luck, . . .
Summary: 5 Stars
In terms of pure detection-ism, this is one of the author's best books featuring Lord Peter Wimsey, debonair aristocrat and talented amateur sleuth, in partnership with Harriet Vane, successful writer of mystery novels, whom Wimsey has been pursuing doggedly since saving her from the gallows. Harriet is taking a break from work by way of a walking tour along the southwest coast and by purest accident she discovers the body of a bearded young man with a profusely bleeding cut throat atop a large stone slab on the beach below the road. Being her, she whips out her camera and documents the scene, knowing the tide is coming in and that the body will be gone before she can summon help. She gathers up the razor that appears to be the instrument of destruction and then off she goes. She soon discovers the man was a professional dancer (ballroom-type) and gigolo at a nearby resort hotel, and that the police assume the victim must be a suicide. But he doesn't seem to have had any reason to do away with himself; in fact, he was about to marry a much older woman with lots of money. Then Wimsey turns up to lend a hand, whether she wants the assistance or not, and the two decide it must be a murder -- if only because that would suit them better.
Some authors seem to concentrate on one or another of the three main ingredients of a good murder mystery -- plot, characters, and narrative style -- but Sayers is one of the few who was consistently top-drawer at all three. The plot this time quickly becomes highly complex with a relatively large number of key characters and numerous red herrings -- so much so that even our two detectives have to make up lists and charts to keep everything straight. It's a useful device for the reader, too, and there's also a delightful sequence involving the solving of a playfair cipher. At the same time, the characters are fully formed and fascinating -- and not only Peter and Harriet but Antoine, Inspector Umpelty, Mrs. Weldon, and the gold-digging Miss Leila Garland. But on top of all that, there's the author's quotation-laden dialogue, her use of subtle implication instead of bald description (it makes you pause and think again about what you've just read), and her gently sardonic jabs at British types and cultural assumptions. And the solution to the whole thing was not one I expected, even though it has (eighty years later) become something of a cliché. Sayers didn't write nearly enough books about Lord Peter Wimsey to satisfy me.