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Thus Was Adonis Murdered by Sarah Caudwell
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Thus Was Adonis Murdered (1981)

by Sarah Caudwell

Other authors: See the other authors section.

Series: Hilary Tamar (1)

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Recently added bymaribou, detectivize, private library, pamtreece, SChant, thecamomile, erinalbion, Lizzy, Sarahsponda
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  1. 40
    Rumpole of the Bailey by John Mortimer (GeraniumCat)
    GeraniumCat: Anyone who enjoys Sarah Caudwell's legal mysteries should also like Horace Rumpole, and vice versa. They share much of the same humour, a delicious set of English eccentrics and a similar fascination with the intricacies of the legal system.
  2. 11
    Still Life by Louise Penny (wandering_star)
    wandering_star: Both these mystery series are excellent examples of the quirky/cosy end of the spectrum, with extremely engaging characters, an ironic wit and good twisty mysteries.
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Showing 1-5 of 17 (next | show all)
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. ( )
  cricketbats | Apr 18, 2013 |
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.

( )
  bookswoman | Mar 31, 2013 |
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. ( )
  NanaCC | Mar 2, 2013 |
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-... ( )
3 vote GeraniumCat | May 11, 2012 |
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. ( )
  marsap | Apr 2, 2012 |
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Author nameRoleType of authorWork?Status
Sarah Caudwellprimary authorall editionsconfirmed
Cox, PaulCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Gorey, EdwardCover artistsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
Haddon, EvaNarratorsecondary authorsome editionsconfirmed
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To J.G.F.C.G.
for all the letters I've failed to write you
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Scholarship asks, thank God, no recompense but Truth.
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'Furthermore,' I added, 'it is no use your implying, Selena, that your part in the enterprise was a merely negative one. If you tell me that Julia could have managed to purchase a travel ticket, find her passport, pack her suitcase and catch an aeroplane, all without the aid of some competent adult, I shall be obliged to disbelieve you.'
It is about an hour and a half since you left me at the airport. Things, since you left, have not gone well with me: they have taken me from a place where there was gin to a place where there is no gin, and from a place where I could smoke to a place where I cannot smoke. That is to say, from the departure lounge to the aeroplane.
'Julia did very well,' said Selena, 'not to fall into the lagoon. How beastly of that woman to suggest she'd had too much to drink.'

'Most uncharitable,' said Ragwort. 'Julia, as we all know, needs no assistance from alcohol to make her trip over things.'
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Book description
Androgynous barrister Hilary Tamar's colleague, Julia Larwood (young, brilliant and disorganized) is in deep trouble with the Inland Revenue. Julia goes on holiday to Venice, seeking romance; she also finds a dead body.
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Detective and mystery stories. Mystery fiction. 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?… (more)

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