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Hilary Tamar #4
The Sibyl in Her Grave: A Novel
Follow the money in this gripping literary puzzle—the fourth and final installment of Sarah Caudwell’s brilliant Hilary Tamar mystery series.
“Sarah Caudwell is one of my very favorite mystery writers.”—A. J. Finn, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
Julia Larwood’s Aunt Regina needs help. She and two friends pooled their modest resources and invested in equities. Now the tax man demands his due, but they’ve already spent the money. How can they dig themselves out of the tax hole? Even more to the Can the sin of capital gains trigger corporeal loss?
That's a question for the sibyl, psychic counselor Isabella del Comino, who has offended Aunt Regina and her friends by moving into the rectory, plowing under a cherished garden, and establishing an aviary of ravens. When Isabella is found dead, all clues point to death by fiscal misadventure.
So Julia calls in an old friend and Oxford fellow, Professor Hilary Tamar, to follow a money trail that connects Aunt Regina to what appears to be capital fraud—and capital crime. The two women couldn't have a better champion than the erudite Hilary. Once again Sarah Caudwell sweeps us into the scene of the crime, leaving us to ponder the greatest mystery of Hilary themself.
Don’t miss any of Sarah Caudwell’s riveting Hilary Tamar
THUS WAS ADONIS MURDERED • THE SHORTEST WAY TO HADES • THE SIRENS SANG OF MURDER • THE SIBYL IN HER GRAVE
“Sarah Caudwell is one of my very favorite mystery writers.”—A. J. Finn, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window
Julia Larwood’s Aunt Regina needs help. She and two friends pooled their modest resources and invested in equities. Now the tax man demands his due, but they’ve already spent the money. How can they dig themselves out of the tax hole? Even more to the Can the sin of capital gains trigger corporeal loss?
That's a question for the sibyl, psychic counselor Isabella del Comino, who has offended Aunt Regina and her friends by moving into the rectory, plowing under a cherished garden, and establishing an aviary of ravens. When Isabella is found dead, all clues point to death by fiscal misadventure.
So Julia calls in an old friend and Oxford fellow, Professor Hilary Tamar, to follow a money trail that connects Aunt Regina to what appears to be capital fraud—and capital crime. The two women couldn't have a better champion than the erudite Hilary. Once again Sarah Caudwell sweeps us into the scene of the crime, leaving us to ponder the greatest mystery of Hilary themself.
Don’t miss any of Sarah Caudwell’s riveting Hilary Tamar
THUS WAS ADONIS MURDERED • THE SHORTEST WAY TO HADES • THE SIRENS SANG OF MURDER • THE SIBYL IN HER GRAVE
336 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2000
86 people are currently reading
1196 people want to read
About the author
Sarah Caudwell
10 books136 followersSarah Cockburn (1939-2000) wrote under the pen-name Sarah Caudwell. She was a mystery writer. The four books of her "Hilary Tamar" series are her only novels other than The Perfect Murder which she co-wrote with several other novelists, but she also wrote several short crime stories. She was the half-sister of Alexander Cockburn.
Series:
* Hilary Tamar Mystery
Series:
* Hilary Tamar Mystery
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 216 reviews
June 18, 2011
Possibly this was my favorite of the Tamar series. It is lovely how this series gets better and better. I had to go back and give them all five stars just because they don't drop off and get terrible by the end. This one has hokum and euphemistic professions and an evilly helpful girl, and finally we meet Julia’s dear Aunt Regina (pronounced . . . well, you know). And, of course, murrrrderrrrr. I listened to half of it on audio, but then I was so impatient to read the rest that I sat down and read it in my room on a beautiful, rainy evening with candles and soup and peonies blooming just outside my window.
Caudwell tells her readers just the right amount of things. She’s not always going off about the wood somebody made a cabinet with, or the clothes everybody is wearing, unless I actually want to know about those things. I mean, there is that hilarious part in one of these – I think it’s in the Sirens – where Ragwort tells Julia that he thinks her dress was made for someone with broader shoulders. That gives you just the information you need to know about Julia’s dress, and it establishes Ragwort’s talent for euphemism at the same time. Anyway, the clothes and furniture and whatnot that Caudwell describes establish the characters, unlike some books, where the author is just taking up my precious time to prove she researched what the kids were wearing and storing their dishes in back in the day. So annoying.
This one also had some interesting stuff about insider trading and inheritance. Mostly, the characters were once again brilliant. The only tragedy (other than the story) is that I have no more of these to read. I will have to start the series from the beginning again.
Caudwell tells her readers just the right amount of things. She’s not always going off about the wood somebody made a cabinet with, or the clothes everybody is wearing, unless I actually want to know about those things. I mean, there is that hilarious part in one of these – I think it’s in the Sirens – where Ragwort tells Julia that he thinks her dress was made for someone with broader shoulders. That gives you just the information you need to know about Julia’s dress, and it establishes Ragwort’s talent for euphemism at the same time. Anyway, the clothes and furniture and whatnot that Caudwell describes establish the characters, unlike some books, where the author is just taking up my precious time to prove she researched what the kids were wearing and storing their dishes in back in the day. So annoying.
This one also had some interesting stuff about insider trading and inheritance. Mostly, the characters were once again brilliant. The only tragedy (other than the story) is that I have no more of these to read. I will have to start the series from the beginning again.
December 20, 2019
My epic journey back to stay with my family for Christmas descended into chaos this year, as two trains were cancelled, then a rail replacement bus dumped me at the wrong station in the arse end of nowhere. Moreover, someone very nearly crushed me while trying fruitlessly to cram a vast suitcase into overhead storage. All this took nine hours and was deeply enraging, but reading this utterly charming novel was a balm throughout. Of the Hilary Tamar mysteries, this has the most interesting twists and probably the least important role for Hilary. She spends her time drinking with her barrister friends, feuding with the Bursar of her college, and being fooled by red herrings. I adore her, and of course the rest of the cast too. Serena, my favourite, devotes most of the book to dealing with the vicissitudes of building works:
As I've found with all the books in the series, everything up to and including death is treated in a remarkably offhand manner. I've become accustomed to this and now find Caudwell's tone thoroughly delightful. The epistolary element in this case comes largely from Julia's inimitable Aunt Regina and her circle of rural friends. Pleasing details include a vulture, a convincingly unbearable character in the form of Daphne, Ragwort's awkward encounter with a dominatrix, John Soane's Museum (a place I love), and mysterious shenanigans galore. The solution is ingenious and satisfying, albeit with some rather morbid details. Those suited my mood while waiting in a bleak and deserted railway station and cursing the ineptitude of Greater Anglia, though. I wish there were more than four Hilary Tamar books, as each is an utter joy.
"My dear Serena," I said, "you sound as if you thought that once the builders arrive your troubles will be over. This is not the universal experience."
"Well, there'll obviously be a certain amount of noise and mess while they're actually there. But they've promised to finish by the Long Vacation, so it shouldn't be too disruptive."
She leant back and drank her wine, with the serene contentment of a young woman who has agreed a satisfactory estimate and a convenient timetable, and has never had builders in before.
[...]
[During the Long Vacation] My first impression was that a small civil war had broken out, the result, possibly, of some unhappy disagreement between the Bar and the Law Society, and that 62 New Square had been chosen a particular object of hostile bombardment. The air was heavy with the dust of shattered plaster; the walls and timbers shuddered at the pounding of hammers and the pitiless reverberation of electric drills; muscular men in string vests were attacking the building with hammers. In short, the builders were in.
As I've found with all the books in the series, everything up to and including death is treated in a remarkably offhand manner. I've become accustomed to this and now find Caudwell's tone thoroughly delightful. The epistolary element in this case comes largely from Julia's inimitable Aunt Regina and her circle of rural friends. Pleasing details include a vulture, a convincingly unbearable character in the form of Daphne, Ragwort's awkward encounter with a dominatrix, John Soane's Museum (a place I love), and mysterious shenanigans galore. The solution is ingenious and satisfying, albeit with some rather morbid details. Those suited my mood while waiting in a bleak and deserted railway station and cursing the ineptitude of Greater Anglia, though. I wish there were more than four Hilary Tamar books, as each is an utter joy.
October 22, 2018
The final Hilary Tamar mystery and one of the strongest offerings in the series, despite its more conventional trappings (a strange death in a country village!). I had been hoping for a Ragwort-centric story, since the other three major players had a story that focused quite a bit on them (the first book Julia, the second book Selena, and the third Cantrip) and, like Julia, I have a bit of a hopeless crush on the calm and collected Ragwort. I was still delighted by this installment, however, which pushes to center stage Julia's famed Aunt Regina. The plot of this book was quite comprehensible, and the characters sharp and delightful.
This book does give a wink, a single wink, at Hilary's gender being an unknown variable. Now that I've finished the series, I can more confidently state that this aspect is pulled off well. If readers are worried that it's handled for humor, that it invites cringes and gawking like Pat from SNL, have no fear. It's not like that at all. Jokes at the expense of gender are limited to jokes about men that flip conventional patriarchal attitudes (and are always presented as views of the characters), and jokes about sexuality are simply not made, because they're not needed! GASP, how revolutionary. Hilary goes to a lesbian bar in one of the books and the question of gender does not surface to relevance even then. And that's just the thing; Hilary's gender is irrelevant: to the story, or to Hilary as a detective, professor, friend, or to how Hilary lives life in general. And that's just cool. And, hand in hand with this, queerness is treated as something normal. Huzzah.
And the last thing I want to say about this series (for now, at least; I have hopes of tracking down the short stories) is the fun way in which the intricate puzzles are played out for the reader. The mysteries are clever, but Caudwell does a lot of echoing and shadowing that feels very natural, and that allows the reader to make guesses and leaps without feeling like they're being tricked (I pretty much HATE that in mysteries) or they're being considered stupid (also HATE) or the mystery is too easy and the book unengaging analytically. Caudwell assumes her readers are as smart as she is, no more and no less, and that there's no reason to trick or to twist unnecessarily, just to tell a good story with characters you want to hang out with. (Or is that just me, that I want to sneak into the Corkscrew and have a glass of wine with them all? And I don't even like wine!)
Good book, good end to the series, good series. I wish Caudwell had had more years to write more of these excellent novels.
This book does give a wink, a single wink, at Hilary's gender being an unknown variable. Now that I've finished the series, I can more confidently state that this aspect is pulled off well. If readers are worried that it's handled for humor, that it invites cringes and gawking like Pat from SNL, have no fear. It's not like that at all. Jokes at the expense of gender are limited to jokes about men that flip conventional patriarchal attitudes (and are always presented as views of the characters), and jokes about sexuality are simply not made, because they're not needed! GASP, how revolutionary. Hilary goes to a lesbian bar in one of the books and the question of gender does not surface to relevance even then. And that's just the thing; Hilary's gender is irrelevant: to the story, or to Hilary as a detective, professor, friend, or to how Hilary lives life in general. And that's just cool. And, hand in hand with this, queerness is treated as something normal. Huzzah.
And the last thing I want to say about this series (for now, at least; I have hopes of tracking down the short stories) is the fun way in which the intricate puzzles are played out for the reader. The mysteries are clever, but Caudwell does a lot of echoing and shadowing that feels very natural, and that allows the reader to make guesses and leaps without feeling like they're being tricked (I pretty much HATE that in mysteries) or they're being considered stupid (also HATE) or the mystery is too easy and the book unengaging analytically. Caudwell assumes her readers are as smart as she is, no more and no less, and that there's no reason to trick or to twist unnecessarily, just to tell a good story with characters you want to hang out with. (Or is that just me, that I want to sneak into the Corkscrew and have a glass of wine with them all? And I don't even like wine!)
Good book, good end to the series, good series. I wish Caudwell had had more years to write more of these excellent novels.
April 19, 2020
There's a literary genre my little brother refers to as "talk-talk-talk, have-a-cup-of-tea" stories. For a kid surrounded by Mom's Jane Austen, Dad's PG Woodhouse, and brothers with a love of Rumpole and Agatha Christie, it makes grudging sense. The Sybil in Her Grave bears all the hallmarks of those genres, but would be better described as "talk-talk-talk, have-a-gin-and-tonic, race-breakneck-through-feverish-knotty-mystery-and-wallop-you-in-the-end"
All the repressed British frustrations, masked with niceties and erudition, feel familiar. But the knotty, bafflingly complex clues and theories are uniquely enthralling and command a puzzler's curiosity. A level handed humor balances grim criminality, and makes for a great read.
The energy and vigor of the last 100 pages so far outstrips the first 200 to leave the reader with some whiplash. However, that unevenness is balanced by an array of insightful and unique characters (both detectives and suspects) of a much more modern moment than its rivals.
It was a treat, so much so, I may have to lend it to my brother with a box of earl gray, or at least some sapphire gin.
All the repressed British frustrations, masked with niceties and erudition, feel familiar. But the knotty, bafflingly complex clues and theories are uniquely enthralling and command a puzzler's curiosity. A level handed humor balances grim criminality, and makes for a great read.
The energy and vigor of the last 100 pages so far outstrips the first 200 to leave the reader with some whiplash. However, that unevenness is balanced by an array of insightful and unique characters (both detectives and suspects) of a much more modern moment than its rivals.
It was a treat, so much so, I may have to lend it to my brother with a box of earl gray, or at least some sapphire gin.
November 5, 2023
It really is a shame that Sarah Caudwell only published four Hilary Tamar books before passing away. They have the charm of a 1940s classic whodunnit mingled with a bracing dose of 1990s barrister life. Which ought not to work. Yet somehow, this series manages to feel both vintage and modern without sacrificing either.
The final solution was, perhaps, a tiny bit foreseeable, but the path it took to get there was truly a delight to read. Every rabbit trail ties back. The banter kept me chuckling and the characters and their shenanigans left me wishing for more.
Does it deserve five stars? Perhaps not. But I'm rating for personal enjoyment at this point.
So glad to see that the first two books at least have gone through a reprint. Hopefully that means we'll get the last two as well!
The final solution was, perhaps, a tiny bit foreseeable, but the path it took to get there was truly a delight to read. Every rabbit trail ties back. The banter kept me chuckling and the characters and their shenanigans left me wishing for more.
Does it deserve five stars? Perhaps not. But I'm rating for personal enjoyment at this point.
So glad to see that the first two books at least have gone through a reprint. Hopefully that means we'll get the last two as well!
June 18, 2022
Since the weather in September was still fairly good, I thought reading a cosy mystery might be just the way to ease into R.I.P. XV.
This fourth and final instalment of the Hilary Tamar series was just as entertaining as the preceding ones. The plot, as usual, is very convoluted, but I don't read these books for the plot anyway. The writing and the British humour are much more important, and these didn't disappoint.
As a side-note, I like the casual way in which homosexuality is treated in Caudwell's books. Gay characters are featured without ever being called such. They just have partners of the same sex and nobody bats an eye. Refreshing.
Edit 18 June 2022: adding my text updates under the spoiler tag in case they are disappeared:
This fourth and final instalment of the Hilary Tamar series was just as entertaining as the preceding ones. The plot, as usual, is very convoluted, but I don't read these books for the plot anyway. The writing and the British humour are much more important, and these didn't disappoint.
As a side-note, I like the casual way in which homosexuality is treated in Caudwell's books. Gay characters are featured without ever being called such. They just have partners of the same sex and nobody bats an eye. Refreshing.
Edit 18 June 2022: adding my text updates under the spoiler tag in case they are disappeared:
January 16, 2009
It took me some time (living as I do in seclusion) to realise this book existed, it having been some ten years since the author's previous work, and, having found it, I then put off reading it, knowing that there will be no more from this writer. Even though she wrote only four novels, her death was a profound loss, not only in itself but also in that it deprives us forever of learning more of Julia, Selina, Ragwort, Cantrip, Timothy and the eternally mysterious and genderless Professor Hilary Tamar.
The book itself? Lovely, cosy, funny, clever, erudite, and ultimately deeply satisfying. It is the way of the world, I suppose, that an author like this should have written so little, when others ... well.
The book itself? Lovely, cosy, funny, clever, erudite, and ultimately deeply satisfying. It is the way of the world, I suppose, that an author like this should have written so little, when others ... well.
July 11, 2023
The final installment has a very interesting solution for the mystery, even if Caudwell does indulge rather more in red herrings than I would have thought necessary. But it also features quite the most irritating character I can ever remember being fed up with, and as the other characters, together with the author herself, go in very heavily for the "rather pitied than censured" stance - it could almost ruin the whole book for me. In a final symmetry, we get some letters from Ragwort, the last of the Nursery quartet, in this one. (letters? in or about 2000? Yes, that's exactly why I loved these books)
November 22, 2007
The delectable, lapidary, sly Caudwell. Only four mysteries, but what delights.
August 17, 2022
This is the fourth and, very sadly, the last in the Hilary Tamar series. I enjoyed it enormously; as before, the chief delight of the story is in the telling.
Julia’s aunt has a minor tax problem on which she consults Julia, and the usual quartet of young-ish barristers plus Hilary are drawn into a strange web of dodgy psychics, insider dealing, possible poisoning and mysterious deaths. I found the plot rather weaker than in the previous books, but I didn’t care at all. Hilary’s narrative voice is as enjoyable as ever, with its wit, pomposity and self-delusion (or at least self-exculpation), and the usual communications by letter of events elsewhere are equally well done. The dialogue is invariably brilliant (I’m a particular devotee of Selena’s searching and acerbic wit) and the whole thing is a delight.
Sarah Caudwell’s books for me stand with those of P.G. Wodehouse, Damon Runyon and Flann O’Brien; the prose in all of them makes me laugh out loud, no matter what the story. I can give them no higher praise and recommend all of them very warmly.
Julia’s aunt has a minor tax problem on which she consults Julia, and the usual quartet of young-ish barristers plus Hilary are drawn into a strange web of dodgy psychics, insider dealing, possible poisoning and mysterious deaths. I found the plot rather weaker than in the previous books, but I didn’t care at all. Hilary’s narrative voice is as enjoyable as ever, with its wit, pomposity and self-delusion (or at least self-exculpation), and the usual communications by letter of events elsewhere are equally well done. The dialogue is invariably brilliant (I’m a particular devotee of Selena’s searching and acerbic wit) and the whole thing is a delight.
Sarah Caudwell’s books for me stand with those of P.G. Wodehouse, Damon Runyon and Flann O’Brien; the prose in all of them makes me laugh out loud, no matter what the story. I can give them no higher praise and recommend all of them very warmly.
June 28, 2011
A fun little mystery story, but it didn't live up to its hype.
See, a friend of mine (sadly not on Goodreads), has been talking up Sarah Caudwell recently. Well, this is the novel I found first, so it's the one I read. And I suppose it's nice enough, but...
It all felt so contrived. Oh, the OTT "upper-class English speech" (which: I went to the wrong parties at Oxford apparently). Oh, the way everyone knows everyone (e.g., the lawyer you bump into in London happens to have a flat right next to yours in Cannes during the holidays). You have to take the book with more than a single grain of salt, and you have to be in the mood for writing that strives to sound witty.
Not that it isn't witty. I giggled over TSiHG a few times. Just...contrived.
Solidly 3 stars.
See, a friend of mine (sadly not on Goodreads), has been talking up Sarah Caudwell recently. Well, this is the novel I found first, so it's the one I read. And I suppose it's nice enough, but...
It all felt so contrived. Oh, the OTT "upper-class English speech" (which: I went to the wrong parties at Oxford apparently). Oh, the way everyone knows everyone (e.g., the lawyer you bump into in London happens to have a flat right next to yours in Cannes during the holidays). You have to take the book with more than a single grain of salt, and you have to be in the mood for writing that strives to sound witty.
Not that it isn't witty. I giggled over TSiHG a few times. Just...contrived.
Solidly 3 stars.
July 8, 2023
The final two installments in this series really are perfection—funny, charming, well-plotted, and surprising. This might be the only mystery I've read where
A nice bit of meta-commentary here too: "Having browsed for a few minutes in the High Street bookshop, I was soon afterwards comfortably settled in the saloon bar of the Newt and Ninepence with all that a reasonable women could require for absolute comfort—that is to way, a glass of wine, a toasted sandwich, and a detective story I had never read before."
A nice bit of meta-commentary here too: "Having browsed for a few minutes in the High Street bookshop, I was soon afterwards comfortably settled in the saloon bar of the Newt and Ninepence with all that a reasonable women could require for absolute comfort—that is to way, a glass of wine, a toasted sandwich, and a detective story I had never read before."
October 5, 2014
Like the other books in this too short series, implausible coincidences abound, but in the world Sarah Caudwell has created, they seem perfectly normal. Multiple mysterious illnesses and deaths occur. Are they natural or not? If someone is killing people associated with the small village of Parsons Haver, who is it and why? The young barristers of Chancery Bar, along with professor Hilary Tamar share drinks, stories, and speculation over the course of nearly a year in a most entertaining manner.
August 8, 2015
I was ... amused.
This is a book I picked up recently at a library sale because I noticed the Edward Gorey dust jacket. This was not my first Sarah Caudwell, since I read Thus Was Adonis Murdered some years ago but hadn't read the rest of her books. Not that I'd avoided them, just that I am more likely to read a British cozy mystery than a send-up of one.
Actually, the nudge/wink regarding building contractors on page 26 and continued on page 56, might be equally true anywhere in the world. Selena says:
I know little of law or psychic counseling but I do know genealogy. On page 117 Regina asks Julia (in a letter written on paper with what? a quill?) to look up Jeremiah Arkwright in the probate records in London to see if he had any children. What British woman of a certain age and class can't find this information without asking for help? It seems like everyone knows everyone. But no one knows the Arkwrights? Besides that, dates on letters indicate that the story is set in 1999. And there are no computers closer than London?
This is a book I picked up recently at a library sale because I noticed the Edward Gorey dust jacket. This was not my first Sarah Caudwell, since I read Thus Was Adonis Murdered some years ago but hadn't read the rest of her books. Not that I'd avoided them, just that I am more likely to read a British cozy mystery than a send-up of one.
Actually, the nudge/wink regarding building contractors on page 26 and continued on page 56, might be equally true anywhere in the world. Selena says:
And now the plumber's rung up to say that his van's broken down and he can't be here before midday. and the electrician's rung up to say that he has an emergency in High Barnet and can't be here until the afternoon. and the carpenter's rung up to say that he has a family bereavement and can't be here at all. Hilary, do you think men in the building trade always behave like this?"To which Hilary replies:
"I'm sure it's most unusual." What was unusual, from all I had ever heard of such matters, was not their failure to arrive but their telephoning to give notice of it...
I know little of law or psychic counseling but I do know genealogy. On page 117 Regina asks Julia (in a letter written on paper with what? a quill?) to look up Jeremiah Arkwright in the probate records in London to see if he had any children. What British woman of a certain age and class can't find this information without asking for help? It seems like everyone knows everyone. But no one knows the Arkwrights? Besides that, dates on letters indicate that the story is set in 1999. And there are no computers closer than London?
August 19, 2014
This is the fourth and last book in this wonderfully amusing mystery series featuring an unlikely set of detectives: a group of rather frazzled young English barristers, who are more usually occupied with setting up trust funds or defending clients from accusations of tax evasion. Caudwell was herself a barrister, and these contemporary stories were written around the 1980’s - that’s the twentieth century, not the nineteenth; however the writing is highly stylized like a novel from that earlier age, and that’s half the reason these are so much fun to read.
The mystery begins when Julia’s aunt writes asking for tax advice (all the books are partially epistolary) and Julia's investigation leads to a case involving insider trading, blackmail and possibly murder. The plot is full of coincidences, but if you can overlook that then it’s pretty entertaining.
The author deals lightly with gender and sexuality. The reader may never even notice that the narrator’s gender is never revealed: in the prologue to this last book Professor Tamar coyly objects to requests for "details of a personal and sometimes even intimate nature".
I admit to being a little disappointed with the reveal at the end:
The mystery begins when Julia’s aunt writes asking for tax advice (all the books are partially epistolary) and Julia's investigation leads to a case involving insider trading, blackmail and possibly murder. The plot is full of coincidences, but if you can overlook that then it’s pretty entertaining.
The author deals lightly with gender and sexuality. The reader may never even notice that the narrator’s gender is never revealed: in the prologue to this last book Professor Tamar coyly objects to requests for "details of a personal and sometimes even intimate nature".
I admit to being a little disappointed with the reveal at the end:
January 11, 2015
A brilliant ending to a brilliant series. I've been giving the books 4 stars out of some weird feeling that 5stars requires a "literaryness" but I felt that 5stars was deserved for a series that's been my most enjoyable reading in a long while. I'm just sad there's no more. The book is funny, has great dialogue and character writing, is tense, interesting references which aren't confusing if you don't know them, a well written gay relationship, has a bunch of twists but none which seem forced or completely unexpected - again i don't think you can work out the whole thing before the end but you can do a good job i think and there's some clever misdirection. The ending wraps this up nicely. A great, great book that I highly recommend if you enjoy mysteries, and the rest of the series too.
September 5, 2019
A modern day send up of the classic English mystery. Very well written in a mannered way that almost tipped over into silliness, but didn't. It reminded me of the .Mapp and Lucia books by E.F. Benson, with strong hints of the pub series by Martha Grimes They all have that same English country village full of eccentrics drinking copious G & Ts.
August 30, 2018
A novel with a truly universal theme: the perfidy of builders. It asks the question that has plagued humanity since the advent of running water: now that the plumber has ripped out all your pipes and left them in your front hall, will you ever see him again?
It also rips out your heart and jumps on top of it a few times, just when you think you're safe.
This is a surprisingly devastating and difficult book. It's sly and funny, like the others, but when I was done I had to go read some absolute trash just to recover.
All four have Edward Gorey covers and this book emphasizes what a perfect choice that was. It's like his art: clever, macabre, and sad.
It also rips out your heart and jumps on top of it a few times, just when you think you're safe.
This is a surprisingly devastating and difficult book. It's sly and funny, like the others, but when I was done I had to go read some absolute trash just to recover.
All four have Edward Gorey covers and this book emphasizes what a perfect choice that was. It's like his art: clever, macabre, and sad.
Read
September 12, 2011While this final example of Sarah Caudwell's fiction is not, to my mind, her best, her mysteries are among the best comic novels one could hope to find, so not-her-best is much better than what most authors have to offer. This time, her usual narrator and protagonists have, for example, a household vulture to (indirectly) contend with. It is a great misfortune that Sarah Caudwell spent most of her life practicing law and so little of it writing fiction.
February 7, 2009
I had never read Sarah Caudwell before, but now I have to read her other books (sadly there are only a few and she is no longer with us). This reads like an old-fashioned cozy, but takes place in modern times. It's charmingly written (if you like the "dear reader" style, which I do!) and it's a very good mystery wiht a lot of twists and turns.
August 29, 2022
I loved each book in this series, but this may be my favourite. Julia Larwood's aunt Regina needs tax advice as she and her friends had accidently invested in a series of successful share transactions which now left them owing the revenue service a large amount of money. New inhabitants of the village, a clairvoyant and her niece, are also causing various upsets until one of them is found dead (fortunately before the pet vulture can get to the corpse). The team at the Inns of Court is slowly drawn into the investigation as it draws in a corporate client of Selena's suspecting insider trading and Ragwort's Christmas trip to the French Riviera. I highly, highly recommend this series.
November 9, 2024
Die Konstruktion war schön. Aber den erste Band mochte ich am liebsten, er besteht vor allem aus banter. Hier war mir zu viel Krimihandlung drin und zu wenig davon, außerdem Roald-Dahl-artig gemeine Darstellung des Aussehens (fett und/oder hässlich) von Figuren.
January 29, 2018
Another marvellous book by the erudite and hilarious Sarah Caudwell. I am beginning to really regret her untimely passing, leaving behind only four books in this series. The pompous but intellectual Prof. Hilary and the band of amiable legal scoundrels embark on unmasking another murderer. Scintillating prose, reminiscent of Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh.
December 23, 2020
I picked this up on a whim in the bookstore, and I was more than pleasantly surprised.
The prose and dialogue are exactly how I wish everyone talked all the time. Verbose and precise, much like something from Jane Austen or some other 19th-century British author (so of course it's quite shocking that I liked it so much).
The large cast of characters are unique and interesting, the plot/mystery are intriguing* without being over the top, and the humor is absolutely spot on. It's the epitome of the kind of British humor that I love: dry, absurd, and generally light hearted. I laughed out loud probably more than a dozen times, which is pretty good for a book of average length.
Perhaps the most unique aspect of this novel is the narrator, Hilary Tamar. The author very skillfully does not reveal the gender of the narrator, but she does so in a way that does not make you aware of it. In fact, I would probably have not even noticed it had I not read on the back cover that Hilary's sex is ambiguous. I didn't automatically assign a gender in my mind either. This is something I haven't seen done before, and Caudwell did a great job of it, so I was impressed.
I would definitely say that this book isn't for everyone, but if it's the kind of thing you like, you will probably like it very much.
Now I'm off to try to stop myself from buying the rest of them all at once, as it's too close to Christmas.
*I am probably easier to please than most when it comes to a mystery plot. I don't put extra effort into trying to figure things out, as I just like to enjoy the read. That being said, I thought that this particular mystery was complicated enough to be interesting and not easily guessable, but it wasn't so convoluted that it seemed far fetched. Basically, what a good mystery should be.
12/22/2020: Having reread this in series order this year and ending with this one, I can say that the mystery of this one is my favorite. I love them all but this one has the most twists in it and they are done well. It was bittersweet to finish this read through of the series. These books are as close as I get to feeling something is perfect (not for everyone perhaps but for me). I love them wholly and am saddened that the author passed before being able to share more of her great talent. I will always cherish what we do have and plan on revisiting them often in the future.
The prose and dialogue are exactly how I wish everyone talked all the time. Verbose and precise, much like something from Jane Austen or some other 19th-century British author (so of course it's quite shocking that I liked it so much).
The large cast of characters are unique and interesting, the plot/mystery are intriguing* without being over the top, and the humor is absolutely spot on. It's the epitome of the kind of British humor that I love: dry, absurd, and generally light hearted. I laughed out loud probably more than a dozen times, which is pretty good for a book of average length.
Perhaps the most unique aspect of this novel is the narrator, Hilary Tamar. The author very skillfully does not reveal the gender of the narrator, but she does so in a way that does not make you aware of it. In fact, I would probably have not even noticed it had I not read on the back cover that Hilary's sex is ambiguous. I didn't automatically assign a gender in my mind either. This is something I haven't seen done before, and Caudwell did a great job of it, so I was impressed.
I would definitely say that this book isn't for everyone, but if it's the kind of thing you like, you will probably like it very much.
Now I'm off to try to stop myself from buying the rest of them all at once, as it's too close to Christmas.
*I am probably easier to please than most when it comes to a mystery plot. I don't put extra effort into trying to figure things out, as I just like to enjoy the read. That being said, I thought that this particular mystery was complicated enough to be interesting and not easily guessable, but it wasn't so convoluted that it seemed far fetched. Basically, what a good mystery should be.
12/22/2020: Having reread this in series order this year and ending with this one, I can say that the mystery of this one is my favorite. I love them all but this one has the most twists in it and they are done well. It was bittersweet to finish this read through of the series. These books are as close as I get to feeling something is perfect (not for everyone perhaps but for me). I love them wholly and am saddened that the author passed before being able to share more of her great talent. I will always cherish what we do have and plan on revisiting them often in the future.
February 5, 2017
The rumor among mystery fans in the 1990's was that Sarah Caudwell had some kind of plot problem with this book, and until she solved it, she couldn't complete/release the book that her fans were waiting for. We didn't know that she was fatally ill. Yet when this came out, there was a discernible melancholy about the book, for all of the wit and charm that defined her writing. Hilary Tamar becomes involved in various puzzles, including an insider trading episode, the strange death of Julia's aunt Regina's stranger neighbor, the theft of a rare engraving, and--by way of the rigors of scholarship (or, as Cantrip would have it, eavesdropping and snooping)--comes up with a number of wrong answers, before finding a correct solution.
June 27, 2017
This book does not have the clean lines of a classic mystery, but it is a very enjoyable book nonetheless. I found it a little surprising that I really do wish that Caudwell had lived longer and written many more novels; the four she left us are so very enjoyable.
September 11, 2016
3.5* I'm not intentionally reading the series backwards - but this was the only copy available at the library, and dang it, the Edward Gorey cover got to me! Couldn't leave it on the shelf. I'd seen this author on Bettie's updates, and would've thought it was an older book (by the cover, I guess) - I don't usually venture into "present day", if I can help it. However! Glad I did. I was immediately hooked and held captive right up to the end. Excellent writing and an interesting plot.
(Thanks again, Bettie!)
(Thanks again, Bettie!)
November 13, 2019
When I visit Professor Tamar I tend to read the first three books and skip Sibyl. Rereading it just now has confirmed for me the benefits of my usual approach. There are parts of the book that I enjoy but
July 14, 2015
The last book in this series - a mere quartet, to my everlasting sadness. And it was my favorite to boot, which makes it all the more tragic. But it's so entertaining and witty and smart and I suspect these books are very re-readable.
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