Have His Carcase (Lord Peter Wimsey)

Slightly tedious, as she tends to be, regarding some of her clues - this time it is a cipher. Also, did I miss something? Either there was something wrong with my Kindle version, or she just stopped writing, suddenly, practically in mid-paragraph. Strange.

I like Sayers, but this story was tedious, repetitive, and burdened by emphasis on the code which is lengthy and not much fun for plot or intellect. The denouement is not so brilliant that it can carry this weight . I wouldn't recommend this book to any but true aficionados.

Dorothy L. Sayers's Lord Peter/Harriet Vane quartet of novels are among my lifelong favorites. I was delighted to find such a handsome new edition...until I actually tried to read them. Misspellings, random capitalizations, endless dumb little errors. I reread these books often, and I don't want to wince in pain every time I do. I'll stick with my old beat-up paperbacks, thanks. Do NOT buy the Bourbon Street Books editions. Ms. Sayers deserves much better than this.

A puzzling murder where the time of death is crucial. Unfortunately most of the novel is wasted effort. If you don't mind being led down a garden path and then having a cream pie thrown in your face, you'll love this. I hated it.

Harriet Vane, taking a relaxing break from her successful career as a writer of detective fiction by walking alone along the south-west coast of England, experiments with making footprints on a sandy beach. Perhaps she can make use of this experience in a book. Happily creating different kinds of footprints above and below the tide line, she comes upon a large rock protruding from the sand. At first she thinks there's a mound of seaweed on top. Then she comes closer. Why would a man dressed in a dark suit be taking a nap atop a rock on a deserted beach? Reluctant to ruin her solitary vacation by talking to anyone, she is inclined to keep her distance. But she doesn't have to worry. He's dead.

What to do? She's alone, on foot, eight miles from the nearest town. When the tide comes in the body will be washed away. She tries to think what her fictional detective, Robert Templeton, would do in such a case, but of course his level of expertise in these matters far exceeds her own. The dead man was young, not a countryman, by his clothes, and his head has been sliced nearly off. Nearby she finds a sharp straight razor. Suicide, apparently. The only footprints she sees are his, leading to the rock from one direction, and her own, from the other. It's a lonely part of the world, and by the time she finds a telephone to call the police, the tide has come in. When she brings them back to the site, it's under 17 feet of water.

Foreseeing this possibility, Harriet had snapped some photos with her little camera, using up all the film she had left, and carried away in her knapsack the razor as well as the dead man's cigarette case, handkerchief, shoe, and hat. Inspector Umpelty is impressed. When he realizes who she is, he understands why she reacted so differently from any ordinary young lady. Plus, she reminds him, she was recently tried for murder herself.

This is a fat, rich, leisurely treat of a mystery (360 pages of very small print in my old Penguin), for savoring, not speed-reading, that will be enjoyed most by the reader who relishes all kinds of details, asides, vignettes, speculations, and parenthetical observations. Wherever she is, whatever she is doing, Harriet notices everything, and cogitates over its every implication. Minor characters have their own distinct points of view and stories to tell.

Harriet is quite a feminist, not a woman to expect or want a man's help when she's in a difficult situation; there's no doubt of her being capable of handling whatever comes her way. The next morning, nevertheless, Lord Peter Wimsey turns up at her breakfast table, unannounced and uninvited. He is her friend, and also, as it happens, determined to make her his wife; she is still thinking. He insists it was the mysterious corpse that brought him here, not Harriet at all; despite her reservations, she's not sorry to see him. She is analytical and matter-of-fact, while he is eccentric and given to fits of inspiration; together they make a perfect team. Wimsey is sure this was not a suicide -- it's too boring, for one thing, and why would anyone take the trouble to go to such a remote spot in order to cut his own throat? Wearing gloves?

The Inspector drops by to say that, though the body may not be found for days due to the tides and rough weather, thanks to the pictures Harriet took, they have identified the man. He was a Russian exile working as a professional ballroom dancer at the Resplendent, the very same luxury hotel in which Harriet is now (having had enough of solitary walking) enjoying a first-floor room with bath, balcony, and ocean view.

One of the most famous detectives of the British Golden Age of Mystery is not a policeman, but the brother of the (fictitious) Duke of Denver, Lord Peter Death Bredon Wimsey. He is physically unimposing with a rather beaky nose, primrose-colored hair, and Sayers mentions several times his appearance of unfocused vacuity. People tend to underestimate him, possibly because of his loquacity and propensity to wander off-topic into obscure quotations and song (I think this is one of his more endearing traits).

Unfortunately, in "Strong Poison" (1931) Lord Peter fell in love with mystery author, Harriet Vane (modelled very closely on Dorothy Sayers herself) and Harriet hogs up a great deal of this particular mystery (alright, I admit I'm jealous. Lord Peter deserves better). She discovers the body of a man with his throat slashed from ear to ear while she is hiking on a beach, and manages to locate the weapon and take several pictures of the corpse before it is washed away the tide. The corpse was still dripping blood when Harriet discovered it, and no one else was on the beach, so the police are inclined to believe the man, who was a professional dancer at a local hotel, committed suicide.

When Lord Peter learns that his beloved Harriet (who refuses to marry him) might be in trouble once again (he already rescued her from the hangman's noose in "Strong Poison"), he makes haste to investigate the mysterious death.

I do think that "Have His Carcase" (1932) is one of the best mysteries in this series, along with the incomparable "The Nine Tailors" (1934). Admittedly, I skipped rather quickly through the pages where Lord Peter and Harriet are working out a mysterious cipher, but the rest of the mystery flows naturally from clues that are freely shared with the reader.

Also, I'd like to credit Mervyn Bunter, Lord Peter's patient valet with the real breakthrough in this case. Right on, Bunter! I don't see why Lord Peter keeps hanging around with the obdurate Harriet when he's got a friend and companion like you.

In 1929, having been proven innocent of the murder of her fiancé author Philip Boyes due to the efforts of her new friend Lord Peter Wimsey, mystery writer Harriet Vane tries to move on. She walks a sixteen mile deserted beach from Lesston Hoe to Wilvercombe to clear her head.

About halfway into her trek while thinking of lunch, she comes across a murdered body of a bearded young man, whose throat was cut. Harriet takes pictures of the body before the tide takes it out to sea. She wonders if the stranger killed himself or was murdered. Private investigator Lord Peter convinces her they should make inquiries as there is no carcase for the cops to conduct an investigation.

The second Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery with Harriet Vane (see Strong Poison) is an engaging historical murder mystery in which the gender war between the lead couple supersedes the improbable whodunit. Fast-paced, readers will enjoy the collaboration between Vane and Wimsey as it's in the blood.

Harriet Klausner

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

Harriet Vane, well-known mystery writer, has decided to take a walking holiday along the English coast. She would like a bit of solitude to work on her latest novel and to recover from the unpleasantness of being tried for the murder of her former lover (STRONG POISON). She would also like to put some distance between her and Lord Peter Wimsey who had uncovered the true culprit and saved her from prison. Since this is a mystery novel by Sayers Harriet's plans quickly changed.

She stopped for lunch and a short nap on the beach and woke to discover a dead body nearby. In this pre-cell phone age (1930's) reporting the crime to the police became a lengthy affair. Once the police became involved the press and Lord Peter were not far behing putting a decisive end to Harriet's quiet holiday. Soon Harriet and Peter found themselves embroiled in the world of resort life - middle-aged widows, professional dance partners, fishermen, farmers, 'kept' women and long-lost royalty. In the end of course the two triumph, solving the baffling crime.

Lord Peter's infatuation with Harriet begun in STRONG POISON, has a chance to grow during this novel and is beginning to be returned by Harriet. The interactions between the two are well written and a treat for the Peter/Harriet romance fans without detracting from the mystery. As always with Sayers' work the secondary characters are well written and engaging, the plot intricately plotted and clever. Unfortunately Sayers goes into excrutiating detail at times, particularly concerning a rather complicated cipher - skim or skip that chapter.

All in all this is an excellent story, a definite must read for Lord Peter fans, particularly those into the Peter and Harriet romance but this is not the place to begin start with one of the earliest Lord Peter stories or STRONG POISON to begin the Peter/Harriet romance.

The mysteries of Dorothy L. Sayers are intricate and intelligent, models of perfectly maddening puzzles that readers can barely solve. "Have His Carcase" is no exception, a fine round and round-about mystery that keeps readers (and the two detectives) searching till the final chapter.

The story finds Harriet Vane, recently acquited of murder, on a walking vacation. Mystery has a way of following her, and she encounters a dead body on the beach. Was it suicide or murder? Knowing that the tide is about to come in, Harriet takes pictures and clues to preserve what she can, and searches out the local authorities. Lord Peter Wimsey, gentleman detective, comes to Harriet's aid and also delves into the crime, a case of murder with a baffling array of suspects and alibis. Every clue and every alibi makes a strong case for suicide, but Wimsey knows it to be a murder, if only he could prove it.

"Have His Carcase" is a story with a lot on its plate; the wide cast of characters creates a web of further mystery and cluelessness around the death. This is all layered in with the flirtation between Wimsey and Vane, a delectable pairing of romance and comedy, as Harriet rebuffs Wimsey's marriage proposals at every turn. Sayers is perhaps almost too intelligent in her mysteries, giving her detectives almost unlimited knowledge on a wide range of topics. The chapters involving ciphers are particularly hard to decipher, but do little to distract from the excellent mystery at hand. And while the story does seem to go round and round, it comes full circle in the end.

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.

Sayers once again delivers a solid, old-fashioned mystery story set in the English countryside. The body of a gigolo is discovered by Harriet Vane, who was recently rescued by Lord Peter from being wrongly convicted for murder. Vane is supposedly on vacation--on a walking tour to recover from her ordeal, but ends up investigating a murder instead. Lord Peter is madly in love with her but she does not return his affections.

Vane discovers the bloody body on the beach as the tide is coming in. She rushes to town as quickly as possible to notify the police but is unable to do so before the body is swept away on the tides. Lord Peter comes to stay at the seaside resort to investigate the crime and continue his courtship. While working on the mystery together, Vane's feelings for Lord Peter vary from irritation to camaraderie to a reluctant affection.

Lord Peter is a charming, intelligent sleuth who has met his intellectual match in Harriet Vane. This further installment of his adventures evokes the nostalgic atmosphere of an English seaside town during the early 1930's. It also provides an intricate murder mystery and the growing pains of a passionate relationship. Highly recommended.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The second novel with Harriet Vane, it's a longer read particularly compared to the first few Lord Peter novels, and like it's predecessor, Five Red Herrings, it's a rather complicated plot. I'm working my way through the series in order but I've been a little disappointed with the last two novels. I prefer the shorter novels with tighter plots; so far I've also preferred the lighthearted, humourous nature of Lord Peter in the early books.

Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey mysteries tend to fall in one of two camps: cleverly plotted mysteries without any unwelcome material, like Busman's Honeymoon (A Lord Peter Wimsey Mystery), or mysteries so encumbered with sermonizing, lecturing or philosophizing that the reader loses sight of the clever plot, as in Gaudy Night, which almost made me give up on the franchise.

Have His Carcase falls more in the former camp than the latter. While Sayers includes a few too many dead ends, which slow down the action, readers will find the denouement brilliant. Mystery writer Harriet Vane discovers a Russian ex-patriate and gigolo dead on the beach with his throat cut. As with a locked door mystery, in which one must untangle how the murderer could have gotten in and/or out, the secret to Have His Carcase is discovering how the suspects could have committed the crime at a time in which they have unbreakable alibis. Due to dogged detective work, Vane and especially her love Lord Peter solve the riddle.

While Harriet Vane begins the novel behaving like a prickly prig, by the novel's end she has shaped herself up into some semblance of a decent person. If she had continued in the same vein, I don't know that I could have plodded through 440 pages of ungracious sniping.

Have His Carcase isn't for those who like their mysteries action-packed and direct; however, for those who love a British cozy from the Golden Age, the novel will be just their cup of tea.

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 deals up a truly complicated tale full of red herrings, secret cyphers, and intrigue. It gets a bit bogged down in the details but I actually liked how the characters made endless guesses on how the deed was done. In most murder mysteries the main sleuth dazzles the reader with his (or her) amazing little grey cells by getting on the right track immediately, solving the crime with ease, and pronouncing it "elementary". None of that here, Sayers takes us through a myriad of hypotheses leading us through a tangle of ideas until your head spins and you question everything. A nice yarn- enjoy!

I love these mysteries, even when Sayers has Lord Peter prattle on and on. In this one, the very in depth theories are bantered about between the characters until my eyes crossed! Nevertheless, it is a great vacation from life and a brain teaser for mental exercise.

Harriet Vane is on a walking tour when she discovers a dead body. Was it suicide or murder? If it was murder then there are more than enough suspects. It is not Lord Peter's best showing but it holds interests

I love the entire Peter Wimsey series and this is a great adaptation of Ms. Sayers' work. I particularly enjoy Mr. Carmichael's rendition because he has a lovely range of accents and vocal patterns that easily differentiate the characters. His characterization remains solid throughout the entire series -- all of which he has performed for the audio market -- and each returning character's voice is instantly recognizable.

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...

This is a great BBC radio adaptation - can reviewers please pay attention and stop reviewing the book here! Ian Carmichael does well as Wimsey, he treads the fine line of being a Woosteresque fool while actually being quite intelligent. But yes, the story does pretty much lack drama. In the previous story she injected drama by having Harriet Vane on trial, but in this, there's no body, only a somewhat cerebral mystery.

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.

The story was a very interesting crimesolver type of novel. Parts of the solution were glossed over quickly leaving confusion and other parts were explained ad nauseum. The ideas and plot were good. The end came too quickly without a good summation/ conclusion to the story. It sort of left you hanging.

Dorothy Sayers had the gift of respecting all of her characters. Any one of them (including the villains) could be a member of your family. All were flawed with humanity. The mystery is always secondary to the individuals involved. This is a great read that gets better with each reading.

The book is a nice, though a bit longish, detective story - it's about detecting a crime that was imposssible to be committed in the first place, and about Harriet Vane's and Lord Peter Wimsey's rather unpromising, but interesting, romance.
And it's howlingly funny at parts. Unfortunately, not the parts that the writer intended to be funny.
For a writer who always was so painstakingly correct about timetibles, technicalities etc, Ms Sayers had made an astounding mess with her facts.
The victim is a Russian - and Pavlo is his name. Sorry, Dorothy, had he been a Russian, his name would have been Pavel or Paul, given that we're supposed to be talking about Russian aristocracy. Pavlo is an Ukrainian name. It tantamount to calling a character Pierre and insisting he's an Englishman.
Also, if one insists on the poor victim receiving letters with Czechoslovakian stamps, one should not make the evil-doers send them from Warsaw. Polish stamps would surely be better.
Thirdly, it doesn't do to make seemingly intelligent characters speculate that an illness which can be inherited only through female ancestors could have been a proof positive that the sufferer is a descendant of a specified man... not after the female-line business was thoroughly explained in a previous paragraph, anyway.
And, top of the tops, there comes a scene when the good British jurors are not too slighly ridiculed for thinking in cliches about the foreigners... Pavlo the Russian, letters from the capital of Poland with Czechoslovakian stamps on them - Dorothy Leigh Sayers, you've made my day!