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Tag: Harriet Vane

Have His Carcase, Dorothy Sayers

Poor old Have His Carcase! I read it in a bad temper in 2009 and wrote a terse little post about it that didn’t come close to giving it its due. This time around, the normal thing happened, which is that I grabbed it to read while I was brushing my teeth, became addicted, and ended up reading all three Vane-Wimsey books. (Not Busman’s Honeymoon, I don’t like the mystery in that one.) Having just finished Gaudy Night, I am sorry that I criticized Peter for pestering Harriet to marry him. He is actually quite a good character, and for…

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The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers, ed. Barbara Reynolds

This is the first volume of Dorothy Sayers’s letters, actually. It’s properly called, The Letters of Dorothy L. Sayers: 1899 – 1936: The Making of a Detective Novelist.  I am displeased at having two colons in the title.   You know what was most satisfying about this book?  How when I got all through with it, I kept remembering bits of it and thinking, Darn, wish I’d marked that passage, and then glancing back through the book and finding that I had.  Hurrah for me! Dorothy Sayers was an interesting lady, and this book covers the period of her life with…

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Gaudy Night, Dorothy Sayers

A few days ago, my friend tim mentioned Gaudy Night, and I realized that I wanted nothing in the world more than to read Gaudy Night.  I know I refused to read it or even think about it earlier this year when I was reading Strong Poison, but I have rarely enjoyed a reread as much as I did this one.  Reading Gaudy Night this time was like eating cilantro – you know what it’s going to be like, and you are thinking, man, this is going to be great, but no matter how high your expectations are, you find…

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