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5.0 out of 5 stars
A worthy contemporary of P. D. James, Aug 20 2001
I'd never before heard of author Sarah Caudwell until I saw her latest novel, "The Sybil In Her Grave", in a local bookstore. Intrigued by the Edward Gory-illustrated book jacket, I took it down & read that it was one of a series, if you will, of books containing the same characters. Not being one to start in the middle of something, I discovered that the book I'm reviewing now, "Thus Was Adonis Murdered", was the first one in her all-too-short series featuring Professor Hilary Tamar et al. Casting about for a new mystery author (and having consumed P. D. James' latest, "Death In Holy Orders"), I decided to give Prof. Tamar a try.I just finished the book and I found it most delightful. It contains a very brilliantly-constructed conundrum of the "whodunnit" variety. Julia Larwood, one of a group of young barristers who are friends with Prof. Tamar, goes to Venice on holiday, only to wind up in bed with the corpse of the young man she's fancied throughout the trip and finally managed to engage in a one-afternoon stand. (Of course, when she first got into bed with the young man, he WASN'T a corpse, which makes his subsequent dispatch all the more distressing ...) Naturally, members of the Venice police force don't take kindly to this set of events, particularly when Julia's personally-inscribed copy of that year's Tax Finance Act is found lying next to the stiffening body ... From London, then, Prof. Tamar and Julia's other friends at 62 New Square (Selena, Cantrip and Ragwort - all intriguing personalities in themselves) attempt to help solve the mystery and spring Julia out of jail. What follows is an erudite, often hilarious, web of intrigue, frustrated passion and outright chicanery told in VERY tongue-in-cheek style by Prof. Tamar himself ... or herself ... Come to think of it, you never know the sex of our intrepid narrator. Ms. Caudwell has neither Tamar or his compatriots refer to him/her in any way that might reveal the Professor's sex. And that's just one of the subtle plot contrivances that make "Thus Was Adonis Murdered" a delightful read. Sadly, Ms. Caudwell died recently, so her series turned out to be all-too-short. Therefore, I'm beginning the second novel, "The Shortest Way To Hades", featuring the elegant professor and the barristers of 62 New Square, quite slowly, so as not to finish all the books in the series too quickly and to savour the wonderful prose and imaginative situation I'm very likely to find there.
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