Book review: Have His Carcase

Have His Carcase is a 1932 locked-room mystery by Dorothy L. Sayers, her seventh novel featuring Lord Peter Wimsey and the second in which Harriet Vane appears. The book marks a stage in the long drawn out courting of Harriet Vane by Wimsey. Though working closely with him on solving the book's mystery, she still refuses to marry him, says Wiki. In fact the Vane-Wimsey lovey-dovey is fairly thin and could be ignored without losing much.

I enjoyed reading this, in my usual way, mostly as a novel rather than a crime-to-be-solved book. As such it is mild and inoffensive and a suitable read on a Eurostar back from Paris, which is exactly the role it fulfilled. Bought from the Abbey Bookshop, which challenges you to squeeze within its narrow aisles.

But what about its virtues as a crime novel? I cannot speak to the ideal technical details, as I kept skipping over stuff about exactly when the alibi was needed for, whether the pub clock was five minutes fast, and all that sort of tedia. In fact I find that stuff offputting, and would rather a book didn't feel the need to burden me with all that. As it happens, skipping over all those details loses you nothing, so fine.

The choice of suspect eventually narrows down quite naturally to those responsible, with Perkins a sort-of red herring to make this less obvious; and we're left with "but how exactly did they do it", which is nice. And the final reveal is plausible (I'd got as far as thinking that the fresh blood might be simulated in some way thus throwing off time-of-death, but not to the right answer).

But I think a number of implausibiltiies are hidden. Firstly, becoming a jobbing barber for weeks on end merely in order to buy a razor is not plausible; nor is it explained why he should have chosen that exact same piece of coast to do it on. His bad luck in happening to buy a very traceable razor is never noticed. Is that all? Oh, I really think Our Heroine would have tried to drag the body up the beach. It would be so obviously a useful thing to do. But if that's all I can find, she's done quite well.

On the other side, very little attention is paid to how the victim was lured out, until the end, when the mechanism becomes conveniently available; more naturally it would have been at issue from the start. The mechanism is plausible. And I enjoyed learning about the Playfair cipher and an example of its decryption. But I bet this taxes the patience of most readers; and at base it all becomes rather irrelevant.

Lastly, it is taken for granted - as happens so often, I think here perhaps of Lord Edgeware Dies - that once you bring together would-be murderer, weapon, and victim, then clean death inexorably occurs. But I doubt the mechanics, especially on top of a bit of rock, of getting behind someone and cutting their throat cleanly with one blow, without any practice.