Have His Carcase by Dorothy L. Sayers was first published in 1932 and it was a re-read for me. I first read it when I lived in Essex and worked in a building which overlooked what had been the author’s home in Witham. My copy of the book is a lovely Folio edition.

Harriet Vane has just been on trial for murder and had been pronounced not guilty. All the publicity has done wonders for her writing career and money is no problem for her. She has travelled to the south-west of England for a holiday, planning to get lots of writing done while there. But while she’s on a coastal walk she discovers a dead man, it looks like he has committed suicide, but maybe it has just been made to look like a suicide and is really a murder. With Harriet finding the body and even getting blood on her the local police are a bit suspicious of her, but Lord Peter Wimsey arrives to help out, and constantly proposes marriage to Harriet of course.

Eventually the body is discovered to be that of a male dancer/host at the hotel where Harriet is staying. He was of Russian descent and he seems to have been a bit of a dreamer, thinking that he was related to Russian royalty. Was it murder or suicide? He had just been 20 years old, but had been going to marry a wealthy middle-aged widow in a few weeks, he had been her favourite dance partner at the hotel.

Things look a bit dicey for Harriet – again, but Lord Peter helps with the investigations.

I think I enjoyed this one a lot more the first time I read it. This time around I was annoyed by the minutiae of the evidence, secret codes and timetables are involved. I suspect that the author wrote those into the tale to prove that women could do that sort of thing as well as male crime writers. In fact at one point Harriet says:
‘You men have let yourselves be carried away by all these figures and timetables and you’ve lost sight of what you’re really dealing with’

Well, she proved she could write that sort of plot, but for me it’s just as tedious whether written by a male or a female. Thankfully that part of the story didn’t last too long.

It must be about 30 years since I last read her Gaudy Night which I loved, I wonder if I would love that one as much nowadays. Sadly I can’t read my old Gollancz copy of it as the ghost in my old house got it. I was in the attic where I had books shelved right under the eaves and when I spotted Gaudy Night I threw it up to the doorway so I didn’t have to crawl out with it in my hand, it’s quite a thick book. A few minutes later as I was crawling out I expected just to pick it up at the doorway but it was nowhere to be found, and as the attic was all lined and even carpeted it can’t have slipped down anywhere. Several years later as we packed up the whole house to move out I expected to find it but still no luck. Now that IS a mystery which will never be solved!