[.ca] Thus Was Adonis Murdered (ISBN 0753168413)

Loved it!:
Although all of the novels in this too-short series are delightful, this one is by far the best. Professor Hilary Tamar leaves Oxford to visit a group of his former law students practicing in London. One of the group, the preoccupied yet endearing tax barrister Julia, has taken a holiday to Italy, where her weakness for pretty young men has landed her in the middle of a murder. There are no knitting old ladies (or even in-bred villages) in this book, but it is nonetheless a very British story. The tone is wry and witty but much slower-paced (and less violent) than modern American mysteries. If you're looking for something to read between Sue Grafton and Patricia Cornwell mysteries, this is not the book for you. On the other hand, if you are a fan of Dorothy Sayers and P.G. Wodehouse, you will find yourself right at home. N.B. As an attorney, I can tell you that a disorganized, preoccupied tax barrister at a prestigious firm is a completely plausible character. The fact that the general public is not aware of such people only means that the firms do a good job of hiding them in libraries, writing opinions about the latest changes to the tax code.

A worthy contemporary of P. D. James:
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.

delightful, wodehouse style:
Having read two of Sarah Caudwell's books so far, I have decided that Hilary Tamar is a man. In fact, I would cast Sir Derek Jacobi as Hilary in the MYSTERY series of the books--should they ever make one. I find the mysteries delightful in their anachronistic style, and I wish Sarah Caudwell had lived to write ten or twenty more!

Love and death and law and Greece:
Great cocktail of the ever-fascinating Greece, pedantic legal eagles and wit.

An acquired taste:
My experience with this, the first Sarah Caudwell mystery, lies somewhere between the two extreme factions represented in the first ten reviews. I appreciate and agree (to some degree) with both camps. This is not you usual British murder mystery and it may - or may not - be a taste you'll enjoy (a bit like drinking Scotch whiskey). The writing is highly stylized. Each time you pick up the book, it takes a few pages to connect with Caudwell's dry and ascerbic tone. Hence, not a great book to read if you're at risk of interuptions. Likewise, the unusual format wherein the reader is asked to solve the mystery long-distance through a series of letters is different. I found it to be a refreshing change but can sympathize with those who would prefer a more hands-on mystery. Another unusual aspect of the book is the narrator, Hillary Tamar. We are told almost nothing about her. On one hand, it makes her rather mysterious but on the other hand, it doesn't make her very interesting or warm. The rest of the legal band aren't much deeper. The tour group is a bit more fleshed out but are still pretty two dimensional. The underlying mystery is pretty simple, though it took me awhile to figure it out. Still, this book was selected by the International Mystery Booksellers as one of the top 100 mysteries of the 20th Century. Caudwell's later books have received many accolades and I'm optimistic that the glitches in this first book will be fixed.