A young woman falls asleep on a deserted beach and wakes to discover the body of a man whose throat has been slashed from ear to ear . . . The young woman is the celebrated detective novelist Harriet Vane, once again drawn against her will into a murder investigation in which she herself could be a suspect. Lord Peter Wimsey is only too eager to help her clear her name.
'She combined literary prose with powerful suspense, and it takes a rare talent to achieve that. A truly great storyteller.' Minette Walters
{"itemData":[{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":10.64,"ASIN":"0450027120","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":8.07,"ASIN":"0450001806","isPreorder":0},{"priceBreaksMAP":null,"buyingPrice":8.38,"ASIN":"0450021548","isPreorder":0}],"shippingId":"0450027120::lX0eisDDQxsTLWsiJ7si32wntZJd90s5SmT89ySgO%2F6pmck4AtyQNdeU6Xoq%2FjqJkFvh72W7lnr9fvFTQP6yU2PPAil%2FPJSn2cJoHk0iPcA%3D,0450001806::xK07Fgdt7VEnPNj0n7DH0pKdqWVWW0VOb7UvNXvOVMa2r94jTidHkMSCQbuiXGxJtgxfDImCG8DwTLPUPbKYf1Vq0PMbKXawr0pjHEEP%2FBA%3D,0450021548::uPtl8zpZ3JxuKykCb8L2%2BY%2F6VN2b6Wf9TYXt78SiKchL%2B2Gk9%2BDtiDLQjFYtJ0FKLpTv1M9%2B7Br9rv%2BpwPWLQBhGka0hmIQxlQWqVyxPwMg%3D","sprites":{"addToWishlist":["wl_one","wl_two","wl_three"],"addToCart":["s_addToCart","s_addBothToCart","s_add3ToCart"],"preorder":["s_preorderThis","s_preorderBoth","s_preorderAll3"]},"currenyCode":"EUR","shippingDetails":{"xz":"availability","yz":"availability","xy":"same","xyz":"availability"},"tags":["x","y","z"],"strings":{"showDetails":"Afficher l'information","differentAvailabilityAll":"Certains de ces articles seront expédiés plus tôt que les autres.","addToWishlist":[null,null,null],"shippingError":"Une erreur s'est produite, veuillez réessayer","differentAvailability":"L'un de ces articles sera expédié plus tôt que l'autre.","preorder":["Précommander cet article","Précommander ces deux articles","Précommander ces trois articles"],"addToCart":["Ajouter au panier","Ajouter les deux au panier","Ajouter ces trois articles au panier"],"showDetailsDefault":"Afficher la disponibilité du produit et le mode de livraison","priceLabel":["Prix :","Prix pour les deux :","Prix pour les trois:"],"hideDetailsDefault":"Ne pas afficher la disponibilité du produit et le mode de livraison","hideDetails":"Masquer ces informations"}}
Les clients ayant acheté cet article ont également acheté
'She brought to the detective novel originality, intelligence, energy and wit.' - P. D. James
'I admire her novels . . . she has great fertility of invention, ingenuity and a wonderful eye for detail.' - Ruth Rendell
'She combined literary prose with powerful suspense, and it takes a rare talent to achieve that. A truly great storyteller.' Minette Walters
Biographie de l'auteur
Dorothy L Sayers was born in Oxford in 1893, and was both a classical scholar and a graduate in modern languages. As well as her popular Lord Peter Wimsey series, she wrote several religious plays, but considered her translations of Dante's Divina Commedia to be her best work. She died in 1957.
Détails sur le produit
Broché: 480 pages
Editeur : Hodder Paperbacks; Édition : New Ed (1 mars 1987)
My first encounter with Dorothy L. Sayers was the Mobile Mystery Theater series showing on PBS. I now have all three DVD's of the series ("Strong Poison", "Gaudy Night" and "Have His Carcase".) They never produced "Busman's Honeymoon" Dorothy sold the rights to Hollywood and BBC could not get them back. The Resulting movie is "Haunted Honeymoon"(1940) Naturally the TV media cannot fill in all the details that you would pick up from reading the book.
So I read the book. This added more depth to the story, now I appreciate Dorothy L. Sayers more than Agatha Christie. Dorothy not only fleshes her characters out better but her side trips into philosophy and psychology make the story that much more interesting. And just when you say what is the relevance to this conversation it is wrapped up in the final solution.
This is the second of the book series. The story is complete and can be used as a stand-alone story. The notorious Harriet Vane is out for a walk and takes a nap. She wakes up and finds (you guest it) a body. If not for her trusty camera, no one would believe her. As it is the authorities think it was suicide. Wimsey thinks it is murder. Naturally everyone, especially the main suspect has an airtight alibi. The real interest is the interaction between Lord Peter and Harriet.
My first encounter with Dorothy L. Sayers was the Mobile Mystery Theater series showing on PBS. I now have all three DVD's of the series ("Strong Poison", "Gaudy Night" and "Have His Carcase".) They never produced "Busman's Honeymoon" Dorothy sold the rights to Hollywood and BBC could not get them back. The Resulting movie is "Haunted Honeymoon"(1940) Naturally the TV media cannot fill in all the details that you would pick up from reading the book.
So I read the book. This added more depth to the story, now I appreciate Dorothy L. Sayers more than Agatha Christie. Dorothy not only fleshes her characters out better but her side trips into philosophy and psychology make the story that much more interesting. And just when you say what is the relevance to this conversation it is wrapped up in the final solution.
This is the second of the book series. The story is complete and can be used as a stand-alone story. The notorious Harriet Vane is out for a walk and takes a nap. She wakes up and finds (you guest it) a body. If not for her trusty camera, no one would believe her. As it is the authorities think it was suicide. Wimsey thinks it is murder. Naturally everyone, especially the main suspect has an airtight alibi. The real interest is the interaction between Lord Peter and Harriet.
Commentaires client les plus utiles sur Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:4.1 étoiles sur 5 37 commentaires
16 internautes sur 17 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile
4.0 étoiles sur 5Whimsical Seaside Mystery7 février 2004
Par C. T. Mikesell - Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Poche
The second of Sayers' Wimsey/Vane mysteries, "Have His Carcase" never quite gripped me the way "Strong Poison" did. The earlier mystery placed Harriet Vane in jeopardy should Lord Peter prove unable to exonerate her. In this book there is no such risk-factor, consequently the story is little more than a mental exercise regimen for two not-so-old, not-so-dear friends (although they do get quite a bit better acquainted on this outing). The book is also a few chapters too long (or short, depending on your point of view); "the evidence of the mannequin," for instance, made only a minor contribution to the denouement and could have been eliminated - or it could have been better capitalized upon and drawn in several of the women characters as suspects. The murder plot is definitely overcomplicated and would likely never occur in real life ... unless you wanted to commit a murder that would baffle the police and almost thwart Wimsey and Vane as well (in which case it's *exactly* what you'd do).
For its several shortcomings, "Carcase" is still a very enjoyable read. The verbal sparring between Wimsey and Vane is priceless. Vane's perspective as a mystery novelist adds a bit of behind-the-scenes color. The local police force occasionally comes off a bit too indulgent of the amateur investigators, but it was very nice that they were portrayed as neither blustering know-it-alls nor no-nothing bumpkins. Bunter's quest through London involves some of the best written pacing I've ever read.
A couple final points: The word "carcase" in the title would nowadays be written as "carcass." Before reading the book I thought it had something to do with those large trunks that used to get strapped onto the back of cars. The title actually refers to the fact that before a murder investigation can go forward, the police need to have the body (or its remains) at hand. Point two: Don't read "the evidence of the cipher" (Chapter 28) when you are tired; while it provides a very good look at a cryptographer's work, it carries with it the potential risk of causing your head to explode. Be careful, you really wouldn't want that to happen. Trust me.
11 internautes sur 12 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile
4.0 étoiles sur 5The feisty Harriet and the monocled Lord Peter Wimsey.3 octobre 2001
Par John Austin - Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Cassette
Dorothy L Sayers provided some of the great treasures to be found in the so-called "Golden Age of Detective Fiction". A classical scholar with a formidable intellect, she was an eminent practitioner and an eloquent critic of detective fiction. Her feisty, detective fiction writing character, Harriet Vane, and her aristocratic, monocled, amateur detective, Lord Peter Wimsey, may be found together for the second time in her 1932 novel "Have His Carcase".
On a walking holiday, while recovering from a court case in which she was alleged to have killed her lover, Harriet Vane discovers the body of a man. It is lying on rocks on a beach, close to low tide level. The evidence suggests suicide. After taking photographs with her camera, finding a cut throat razor and removing a shoe from the corpse, Harriet vainly tries to enlist help in moving the body before it is washed away by the incoming tide. The local police force is alerted and so is Lord Peter Wimsey.
This is a long novel. Interest focuses not only on the solution to the mystery but also on the likelihood of Wimsey succeeding with his wish to marry Harriet. There is witty dialogue, there are fulsome reports from a range of eccentric characters, there are descriptions of the human anatomy and how it responds to the throat being cut, there is an interminable attempt to decode a ciphered letter, and there are classical quotations provided at the start of each chapter. There is little dramatic tension, no suspense, and no thrills. Dorothy L Sayers was a cultivated, fluent writer, sometimes boring but never banal.
If your tolerance of boredom is low, but your credit balance at the bank is high, then invest in the audio tape reading of the book provided by Ian Carmichael. English actor Ian Carmichael has had great success associated with various adaptations of the novels of Dorothy L Sayers. He brings wonderful energy and gusto to this full-length reading, enough to keep you delighted for more than fifteen hours.
14 internautes sur 17 ont trouvé ce commentaire utile
5.0 étoiles sur 5A Classic in Cryptology29 octobre 1998
Par Un client - Publié sur Amazon.com
Format:Poche
I recommend this book primarily because it contains Lord Wimsey and Harriet's solution of a Playfair cipher.
Most readers will recall Sherlock Holmes' solution of the Dancing Men cipher (recounted in Conan Doyle's The Adventure of the Dancing Men) and Legrand's solution of Captain Kidd's cipher (recounted in Poe's The Gold Bug). Both of these are simple substitution ciphers, easily broken if one knows certain facts about the English language, such as the order of letter frequency (E, T, O, A, N . . .) The Playfair cipher, on the other hand, is an order of magnitude more difficult to solve. It is a digram cipher, using pairs of letters (there are 26x26=676 possible digrams) instead of individual letters to encrypt the message. Tables of digram frequencies are of little use in decrypting short messages. Other methods are required. The mechanics are explained in the text.
The Playfair cipher was used operationally in WWII and to this day remains unsolvable as a one-time, short message, unknown-keyword cipher, unless you can guess one of the plaintext words. Wimsey and Harriet were lucky that they were dealing with an amateur.
Sayer's audacious trump of Conan Doyle and Poe caught my attention. The rest of the book is, to put it mildly, well-plotted. There is evidence here that native British intelligence far exceeds what one finds in the colonies. No wonder Sayers is so popular.
