A review by sarahmatthews
Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers

medium-paced

Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers

Read on audio

Narrator: Stephen Jack for RNIB

Pub. 1932, 499pp

Victor Gollancz

___

I picked up this novel for the continuation of the relationship between private detective Lord Peter and novelist Harriet Vane that started in Strong Poison, and I’m looking forward to going on to her famous novel Gaudy Night after this one as they appear together again there.

This novel has a grisly murder (or was it suicide?) centred around a seaside town that Harriet’s visiting. She discovers the body on the beach and Lord Peter hot foots it down to help her try to figure out the details and ensure she’s not considered a suspect. Throughout the mystery Lord Peter and Harriet seem to have more creative ideas than the local police and Harriet even moves into the victim’s old lodgings!

The victim, Alexis, was a dancer at a large hotel and had been engaged to be married to one of the wealthy guests, and the mystery concerns the question of why would he have contemplated suicide when he had a secure life ahead of him?

There are so many quirky little moments to lighten the mood as things progress, such as this description of a policeman taking notes during an interview:

“The pencil happened to be an indelible one and had left an unpleasant taste in the mouth.he passed a pink tongue along his purple stained lips, looking to Mr Perkins’s goblin-haunted imagination like a very large dog savouring a juicy bone .”

Lord Peter continues to try to romance Harriet and she is still not having any of it, resulting in some amusing exchanges between them and this book is strongest when they’re interacting. 

I also enjoyed the description of Harriet reading through the books on the victim’s shelves as she tried to jog her subconscious for her detective novel, then turning to crosswords to try to get her writing going again.

The eventual solution was rather long winded with an overlong description of solving a cipher (which was tedious on audio), but otherwise entertaining. It took me a long time to read and the ending was rather abrupt, with Lord Peter and Harriet solving the mystery then speeding off to London to go out to lunch! A good read but not my favourite of hers so far.