Have His Carcase, Dorothy Sayers

I made an incredibly embarrassing "Eeeee!" noise in the bookstore when I spotted this; somehow I had it in my head that I'd read all the Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane books, and apparently I haven't. In the book before this one Vane was introduced; she is a mystery novel writer who was living with her lover (scandalous in 1930, of course) and planning to leave him when he was mysteriously murdered. Naturally Harriet was the prime suspect, and Wimsey saved her, falling in love with her in the process, but Harriet refused to marry someone she felt obliged to, and for this and the next few books they solve mysteries together and he proposes every few chapters. She always turns him down, until, I think, Gaudy Night.

As to the plot, it doesn't matter much. Harriet is walking along the beach and finds a dead body. The tide is coming in, and she can't move it, but she has the presence of mind to take some pictures to give to the police. The charm of the books, for me at least, comes from how much they are a part of the time they're written; Harriet can't find a phone to call the police because almost no one in rural England had a phone in their home. She ends up walking miles before she finds a grocer who has a phone, and even then she has to make a "trunk call." Solving the mystery is really just an excuse for Peter and Harriet to dance and go to the beach, although the plot is nicely complicated and there are lots of possible suspects. Wimsey knows he's in a book, to some extent; he says things like "I never trust the man with the air tight alibi; he's always the guilty party!" which isn't true in real life, but is always true in mystery novels. My only complaint is that Harriet disappears for the last third of the book, and she's such a great character -- brisk, cynical, a little bit acid-tounged -- that I missed her.

I just find this so charming:

Telegram from Lord Peter Wimsey to Miss Harriet Vane:

FOLLOWING RAZOR CLUE TO STAMPFORD REFUSE RESEMBLE THRILLER HERO WHO HANGS ROUND HEROINE TO NEGLECT OF DUTY BUT WILL YOU MARRY ME -- PETER.

Telegram from Miss Harriet Vane to Lord Peter Wimsey:

GOOD HUNTING CERTAINLY NOT SOME DEVELOPMENTS HERE -- VANE.

Grade: A

originally posted 2006 -- this series is where I picked up the internet handle Harriet, about 2002.