The Sirens Sang of Murder

by Sarah Caudwell

Synopsis:

Whilst on a trip to the sunny Channel Islands to find the heir to a lucrative tax law case, young barrister Michael Cantrip finds himself in over his head. Peculiar things begin to occur on the mysterious and isolated islands with something - or somebody -- bumping off members of his legal team.

With the help of his mentor, amateur investigator Hilary Tamar, Cantrip, must find a safe passage back to the Lincoln's Inn Chambers.

The Sirens Sang of Murder is the third Hilary Tamar book by Sarah Caudwell, and I was just as enchanted by it. This time it’s Cantrip getting into some real scrapes (could it ever be Ragwort’s turn, or is he too perfect?) and everyone else getting him out, with some serious risk to general life and limb along the way. There’s plentiful helpings of Julia as well, don’t worry.

It’s very British, pretty funny, and happy enough with its own cleverness that it doesn’t feel the need to stick it down your throat, or so it feels to me. If a particular apt phrase or funny moment passes me by, that somehow seems perfectly fine with Caudwell, and no need to labour it too much.

As for the mystery itself, that’s a little convoluted — and dramatic! — but that suits these books perfectly well. And when I say convoluted, I certainly don’t mean on the contrived scale of John Dickson Carr’s work, anyway.

I can see myself reading these books again and again; the cast is delightful, the wit works well for me (maybe there’s a shade of being an air to Sayers’ wittiest moments?) and I bet they could be a real delight in audio, a thought which strikes me enough that I’m going to see if there’s an audio version available.

Rating: 4/5

The Shortest Way to Hades

by Sarah Caudwell

Synopsis:

It seemed the perfect way to avoid three million in taxes on a five-million-pound estate: change the trust arrangement. Everyone in the family agreed to support the heiress, the ravishing raven-haired Camilla Galloway, in her court petition—except dreary Cousin Deirdre, who suddenly demanded a small fortune for her signature.

Then Deirdre had a terrible accident. That was when the young London barristers handling the trust—Cantrip, Selena, Timothy, Ragwort, and Julia—summoned their Oxford friend Professor Hilary Tamar to Lincoln’s Inn. Julia thinks it’s murder. Hilary demurs. Why didn’t the heiress die? But when the accidents escalate and they learn of the naked lunch at Uncle Rupert’s, Hilary the Scholar embarks on the most perilous quest of all: the truth.

I enjoyed the second book in Sarah Caudwell’s Hilary Tamar series quite a bit. The Shortest Way to Hades centres once more around the same group of lawyers, this time entangled with a case that each of them find themselves representing part of. It’s not quite as reliant on letters at first but then Serena heads off on a voyage and the case seems to follow her — and trouble does, too.

I’m a bit bemused to read about how fascinated other people are with trying to figure out what gender Hilary Tamar is meant to be. It’s intentionally ambiguous, and it’s also totally irrelevant. I’m not even going to participate in the debate — or hey, I view Hilary as a non-binary protagonist, now, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

Ahem. Anyway. As I said, Hilary’s gender is totally irrelevant to the story, though they do get themselves a bit more involved in the mystery this time, actually following Serena to Greece in order to help untangle the problem.

The humour of the whole thing remains a light touch: it’s there, and woven throughout the whole story, but not in a way that gets too cringy or gets in the way. I’m not normally one for humour in stories, but it’s hard to describe quite how it works here. My best effort is: this book knows it’s clever and funny, but doesn’t keep trying to demand you laugh.

I’m eager to get the next book!

Rating: 4/5

Thus Was Adonis Murdered

by Sarah Caudwell

Synopsis:

When her personal copy of the current Finance Act is found a few metres away from a body, young barrister Julia Larwood finds herself caught up in a complex fight against the Inland Revenue. Set to have a vacation away from her home life and the tax man, Julia takes a trip with her art-loving boyfriend. However, all is not what it seems. Could he in fact be an employee of the establishment she has been trying to escape from? And how did her romantic luxurious holiday end in murder?

Sarah Caudwell’s Thus Was Adonis Murdered suddenly seemed to be everywhere for me, for a couple of months at the end of 2024. I love a good mystery (though I’m often most drawn to older mysteries), so I was curious about all the praise and decided to give it a shot, although I was a bit worried by it being characterised as funny — sometimes that means slapstick or embarrassment squick, which I wouldn’t gel very well with.

It’s not that. It’s witty and light in tone, though sometimes leans a bit too heavily on “Julia is weirdly stupid about a lot of things” to be quite comfortable for me. The cast of characters is fun, though I probably won’t remember how to tell them apart by the time I read the sequel, because somehow their names wouldn’t stick in my head. (Or rather, which name belonged with which character.) I suspect it’s the kind of book that some non-Brits would find very charming for being “British humour”.

What I found really interesting was that Hilary Tamar does almost all the mystery-solving from a distance, and the characters we follow are mostly kept up to date from a distance, receiving evidence via letters from Julia (the suspect) and reports from people who have gone to the scene of the crime. Despite it being set in Italy, it feels like the reader never leaves London, and yet it doesn’t feel like missing out on the action. Part of that is the wittiness and banter, I’d say, and the letters help with immediacy as well.

If I’d described this to myself beforehand, I’m not sure I’d have picked it up just based on a description of how the story is told, the wittiness, etc — but as it is, I did pick it up, and loved it, and I’m eager for the second book.

Rating: 4/5