Thus Was Adonis Murdered (1981)

I FINALLY got my hands on this. *o/* And it absolutely lived up to expectations. **o/** Caudwell's novels are unquestionably the BEST when it comes to character and narratorial voice; she doesn't quite have Hilary down in this first of the series, but everyone else is so much themselves that I can overlook that. I love the sex-positivism, I love the literary flourishes, I love the devotion to food, I love the implicit feminism. I love Timothy, whom I do not recall from the other Tamar novels, and I love Graziella, and I love Cantrip's hilarious family, and this was totally worth the four dollars second-hand. ( )

Actually this was a DNF for me. I'm not sure why, I liked the premise and the characters mostly seemed okay. I think it might have been the language. it was very formal and very stilted my my inner ear. I also was easily confused when the reading of Julia's letters were happening. Someone would read a section, people listening would interrupt and comment and then back to the letters. Maybe it was that I didn't have enough long periods of time to read more than a few pages at a time. Either way, I finally gave up because it wasn't holding my attention.

( )

Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell.

This is the first of the four Hilary Tamar mysteries written by Caudwell. I had previously read The Shortest Way To Hades and loved it. How could you not love a book that is intelligent and witty with lots of literary references thrown in. The dialog is quick, crisp and very British. Some have likened the writing style to Jane Austen. Think of the humor of Bertie Wooster and the charm of a Dorothy Sayers or Agatha Christie mystery. Third in the series is The Sirens Sang of Murder, and then The Sibyl In Her Grave. Unfortunately, Caudwell died at an early age, so I will need to be satisfied with just four of these clever stories.

The protagonists are Oxford Professor and amateur sleuth Hilary Tamar and friends - five young London barristers, Cantrip, Selena, Timothy, Ragwort, and Julia. In "Adonis", accident prone Julia is on an Art Lovers' tour of Venice where she finds herself the prime suspect in the murder of one of the tour participants. The story is told mostly through letters and narration within letters as the gang sits in coffee shops and pubs trying to solve the mystery to get their friend out of the mess in which she's found herself.

Professor Tamar expresses concern about the friends allowing Julia to go off alone on a vacation. One of them responds that that there is little need to worry as the tours of the city will be made with a guide. Professor Tamar responds:

"..the qualities for a guide are not those of a nursemaid or a guardian of the mentally infirm. The poor fellow will take his eye off her for a moment and she will wander off. What then?"
"She will ask the way back to her hotel."
"She will have forgotten the name of her hotel."
"We have made her write it down on a piece of paper."
"She will have lost the piece of paper. She will find herself alone in a strange city. She will not know where she is or what she ought to do."
"The same thing," said Selena, "happens in London at least once a fortnight."

I highly recommend this delightful series. I think that the "Sirens" will be calling me in a few months. ( )

Every now and then you find a book which is just pure delight from start to finish. This was one - I eked it out across as many days as I could, just to stay with the such an amusing group of characters for a little longer. From time to time I'd stop reading and go back to the beginning, to savour the pleasure of the opening pages, the warm glow of finding a writer whose humour so deftly combines the sardonic with the zany.

Thus Was Adonis Murdered is in large part epistolary, a narrative device which always pleases me. Most of the letters are from Julia Larwood, a young barrister noted for her scattiness except as concerns the Finance Act, who is holidaying in Venice. Although addressed to her friend Selena they are intended for all her friends at 62 New Square, Lincoln's Inn, and are explicit regarding her reasons for suddenly signing up for an Art Lover's Tour - namely, that she is bent on amusement and intends to seduce the first available young man. Her friends, knowing that Julia is as accident-prone as she is nubile, are apprehensive, rightly so, as it turns out, because barely have her first missives arrived, than they learn that she has been arrested on a murder charge.

The young barristers at 62 New Square - Serena, Michael Cantrip, Desmond Ragwort and Timothy Shepherd (who is soon to leave for Venice himself to see a client) are determined to rescue Julia and there is much discussion of her letters, which are read over coffee, lunch and dinner (the first two to the despair of their clerk, Henry, who really thinks they ought to be doing some work. They are armed with Julia's descriptions of her fellow Art Lovers, a good deal of detail about their itinerary, and a blow-by-blow (as it were) account of her seduction of the exquisite Ned.

The story is actually narrated by Professor Hilary Templar, former tutor of Timothy, in London for the purpose of conducting some research. Hilary's style, somewhat reminiscent of that of Horace Rumpole, would be ponderous were it not so delicious, and it is entirely consonant with this style that we never learn the gender of the writer. Hilary's work doesn't progress very fast, since Julia's dilemma demands longer and longer coffee breaks and lunches while fellow Art Lovers are investigated.

For those who delightedly cast themselves upon Professor's Tamar's barbed erudition, there are three more books with the same cast: The Shortest Way to Hades, The Sirens Sang of Murder and The Sibyl in Her Grave.

There is a longer version of this review at http://geraniumcatsbookshelf.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/thus-was-adonis-murdered-by-... ( )

The first mystery in Caudwell's series featuring amateur investigator Hilary Tamar and a cast of young London lawyers. When a young man is found dead in Julia Larwood's bed, her lawyer friends are the only ones who can uncover the truth of this murder. What I found most interesting about this book is that we are never really at the murder scene--only through a series of letters do we get the clues needed to solve the crime. I would give this book 3.5 out of 5. ( )