2008-01-27 Densely plotted and quite, quite brilliant

Have His Carcase begins with a bang when Harriet Vane finding the body of a man with his throat cut on a beach near the seaside resort of Wilvercombe. Unable to drag the body to a safer location and aware that the tide is coming in, she settles for taking photographs of the body before heading off to find a telephone so she can alert the authorities. Unfortunately, by the time she's able to do so, the tide has come in and the body disappeared. Without a body, there can be no inquest but this doesn't unnecessarily worry the local police who believe that the victim, Paul Alexis (a dancer come gigolo) committed suicide. However Harriet is not so sure and when Lord Peter Wimsey comes to offer support, he too finds it difficult to buy into the theory. And then the body finally shows up ...

This is an intricately and densely plotted mystery novel as Sayers deftly takes the reader through Wimsey and Vane's investigations, with the ever-loyal Bunter doing the required footwork. Much of the plot turns on the timing of the discovery of the murder (which I'm not going to spoil but which ties in with the alibi for the main suspect) and the reader is really kept on their toes as Sayers goes through all the possible permutations and what they would mean.

Against this, we're also given more on Wimsey and Vane's relationship as Wimsey persists in asking Harriet to marry him and she persists in refusing. What makes this so interesting is that Sayers successfully sets it up as a kind of running joke whilst at the same time creating a genuinely emotional scene between the two that explores the undercurrents of why each behaves as they do and which I found to be moving (not least because you end up rooting for and understanding the position taken by both characters).

There are some laugh-out-loud moments in the book, my favourite being where Wimsey's visit to a theatrical agent results in him auditioning for a part in a show (complete with a mincing walk), but Harriet's attempts to 'vamp up' for a suspect runs a very close second.

My only criticism of the book is that I thought the ending was far too abrupt. Sayers does tie the loose ends together of how and why the murder was done (incorporating references to the Russian revolution along the way) but we don't know what happens next and I found this open-endedness to be a little frustrating.

Still, I absolutely loved the book and whilst I think readers would benefit from having read Strong Poison first (as it explains some of Harriet's odd behaviour at the start), it's most definitely worth a read.