Have His Carcase

Short Review: Harriet Vane is back and it really helps. The interaction between Vane and Wimsey is what the books have needed. This is a very complicated murder, so the book drags a little bit at times. But on the whole it is very enjoyable and the slow working through the clues really does make sense to the story. Overall this and Strong Poison are the two best books of the series to date (and both include Harriet Vane.)


My full review is on my blog at http://bookwi.se/have-his-carcase/

Re-read in late July 2013 because the littlest thing can provoke a Sayers binge.

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The girl, in an exaggerated gown of petunia satin with an enormous bustle and a train, exhibited a mask of Victorian coyness as she revolved languidly in her partner‰ЫЄs arms to the strains of the ‰ЫПBlue Danube.‰Ыќ ‰ЫПAutres temps, autres moeurs,‰Ыќ thought Harriet. She looked about the room. Long skirts and costumes of the ‰ЫЄseventies were in evidence ‰ЫУ and even ostrich feathers and fans. Even the coyness had its imitators. But it was so obviously an imitation. The slender-seeming waists were made so, not by savage tightlacing, but by sheer expensive dressmaking. To-morrow, on the tennis-court, the short, loose tunic-frock would reveal them as the waists of muscular young women of the day, despising all bonds. And the sidelong glances, the down-cast eyes, the mock-modesty ‰ЫУ masks, only. If this was the ‰ЫПreturn to womanliness‰Ыќ hailed by the fashion-correspondents, it was to a quite different kind of womanliness ‰ЫУ set on a basis of economic independence. Were men really stupid enough to believe that the good old days of submissive womanhood could be brought back by milliners‰ЫЄ fashions? ‰ЫПHardly,‰Ыќ thought Harriet, ‰ЫПwhen they know perfectly well that one has only remove the train and the bustle, get into a short skirt and walk off, with a job to do and money in one‰ЫЄs pocket. Oh, well, it‰ЫЄs a game, and presumably they all know the rules.‰Ыќ

‰ЫчWhat I like about your evidence, Miss Kohn, is that it adds the final touch of utter and impenetrable obscurity to the problem which the Inspector and I have undertaken to solve. It reduces it to the complete quintessence of imcomprehensible nonsense. Therefore, by the second law of thermo-dynamics, which lays down that we are hourly and momently progressing to a state of more and more randomness, we receive positive assurance that we are moving happily and securely in the right direction. You may not believe me,‰ЫЄ added Wimsey, now merrily launched on a flight of fantasy, ‰Ычbut I have got to the point now at which the slightest glimmer of common-sense imported into this preposterous case would not merely disconcert me but cut me to the heart. I have seen unpleasant cases, difficult cases, complicated cases and even contradictory cases, but a case founded on stark unreason I have never met before. It is a new experience and, blasМ© as I am, I confess that I am thrilled to the marrow.‰ЫЄ