Best 1932 Adventures (3)
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April 7, 2017
One in a series of 10 posts identifying Josh Glenn’s favorite 1932 adventure novels. Happy 85th anniversary!
Dorothy L. Sayers‘s crime adventure Have His Carcase.
While on a walking holiday in southwestern England, crime novelist Harriet Vane stumbles upon the body of a dead man; however, shortly after she reports the discovery he vanishes. Lord Peter Wimsey, in his eighth outing, helps Harriet investigate. The dead man, they learn, is a Russian professional dancer and gigolo who was engaged to a foolish rich widow. Was it suicide or a complex murder plot? Exactly when was he killed? The police regard Harriet as a suspect; Wimsey wants to marry her. In the end, it’s a complex puzzle — the sort of murder mystery that only a mystery writer like Sayers, or Harriet Vane, can solve.
Fun fact: This is the second novel in which Harriet Vane appears. The title is taken from William Cowper’s translation of Book II of Homer’s Iliad: “The vulture’s maw / Shall have his carcase, and the dogs his bones.”
Let me know if I’ve missed any 1932 adventures that you particularly admire.