Sarah Caudwell (1939–2000)
Author of Thus Was Adonis Murdered
About the Author
Disambiguation Notice:
Pen name of Sarah Cockburn (1939-2000)
Image credit: John Burlinson
Series
Works by Sarah Caudwell
Malice Among Friends {short story} 3 copies
Associated Works
The Perfect Murder: Five Great Mystery Writers Create the Perfect Crime (1991) — Contributor — 107 copies, 2 reviews
Malice Domestic 06: An Anthology of Original Mystery Stories (1997) — Contributor — 101 copies, 3 reviews
Tagged
Common Knowledge
- Canonical name
- Caudwell, Sarah
- Legal name
- Cockburn, Sarah
- Birthdate
- 1939-05-27
- Date of death
- 2000-01-28
- Gender
- female
- Education
- University of Aberdeen (Classics)
St. Anne's College, Oxford - Occupations
- novelist (crime)
barrister
banker
lawyer - Organizations
- Lloyds Bank
- Agent
- Barney Karpfinger
- Relationships
- Cockburn, Claud (father)
Cockburn, Alexander (half-brother)
Tennant, Emma (sister-in-law)
Waugh, Evelyn (first cousin once removed)
Cockburn, Andrew (half-brother)
Cockburn, Patrick (half-brother) (show all 9)
Cockburn, Leslie (half sister-in-law)
Flanders, Michael (half brother-in-law)
Flanders, Laura (half niece) - Short biography
- Sarah Caudwell was the pen name of Sarah Cockburn, born in Cheltenham, England, to a family of journalists and political writers. She graduated in Classics from University of Aberdeen, read law at the University of Oxford, and lectured on the law for several years. In 1966, she became a Chancery barrister in Lincoln's Inn Fields and later specialized in international tax planning at Lloyds Bank, where she became a senior executive in the trust department. Over a period of 20 years, she wrote a series of acclaimed "legal whodunits" set primarily at Lincoln's Inn, featuring Prof. Hilary Tamar, beginning with Thus Was Adonis Murdered (1981). She collaborated with Lawrence Block, Tony Hillerman and others for the novel The Perfect Murder: Five Great Mystery Writers Create the Perfect Crime (1991), and contributed stories to numerous anthologies.
She also wrote a play, The Madman’s Advocate. She died of cancer at age 60 in 2000. - Cause of death
- cancer
- Nationality
- UK
- Birthplace
- Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, UK
- Places of residence
- Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire, Scotland, UK
Oxford, Oxfordshire, England, UK
Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, England, UK - Place of death
- London, Middlesex, England, UK
- Map Location
- England, UK
- Disambiguation notice
- Pen name of Sarah Cockburn (1939-2000)
Members
Reviews
I’m generally not one for murder mysteries, however this series is distinctively hilarious in a rather Wodehousian manner. This installment is set in the world of offshore tax havens; it says something about the immense charm of the narration that I did not constantly grind my teeth about rich people evading tax. In part, I think, because of the slyly mocking tone. As with [b:Thus Was Adonis Murdered|234327|Thus Was Adonis Murdered (Hilary Tamar, #1)|Sarah show more Caudwell|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1325063408s/234327.jpg|1092711], I didn’t care at all whodunnit - like I said, murder mysteries are not at all my thing. I very much enjoyed the shenanigans and constant gossiping of the legal professionals involved, however. Large portions of the plot are told in an epistolary manner, in the adorably retro format of telex messages, which is delightful. There are secret assignations, car chases, attempts at writing a romance novel, and seminars on tax avoidance. A favourite passage, discussing an inconvenient uncle:
Selena is undoubtedly my favourite character - she carefully stays out of the murder-related drama, while ensuring that events always serve her interests. What a role model. Overall, a slight but entertaining diversion that balances pomposity and irony very adroitly. show less
”What about afterwards?” said Ragwort. “Where are you taking the appalling old menace for dinner?”
“Guido’s. I suppose it’s not quite what he means by a night spot, but I wanted to take him somewhere where he couldn’t get into any trouble. And I don’t think, Ragwort, that you ought to refer to him as an appalling old menace. He fought with great distinction in the Second World war.”
“Fought in it? He probably started it - it would be his idea of a joke.”
“He’s got the DSO,” said Julia.
“He’s a dangerous lunatic,” said Ragwort.
“I am not sure,” said Selena, “that being a dangerous lunatic is inconsistent with having a DSO. One almost suspects that it may be a prerequisite.”
Selena is undoubtedly my favourite character - she carefully stays out of the murder-related drama, while ensuring that events always serve her interests. What a role model. Overall, a slight but entertaining diversion that balances pomposity and irony very adroitly. show less
Professor Hilary Tamar and the young barristers are faced with two suspicious deaths within a group of tax professionals handling a complex trust case referred to as "the Daffodil settlement", which of course gives us the opportunity for a few exotic location scenes in the Cayman Islands, Monaco and the Channel Islands. Writing in 1989, Caudwell's preferred epistolary technique hasn't yet been able to benefit from the invention of email, but she cleverly gets a Telex machine installed at 62, show more New Court, which provides her characters the opportunity to communicate in writing without the need to allow for postal delays.
Another innovation is an irresponsible visiting uncle straight out of P.G. Wodehouse, who provides his share of laughs for us, as well as allowing Caudwell her silliest dénouement scene yet. The name "Daffodil" should also put us on our guard that this story is full of ironic references to old-style British academic detective stories (such as those of Professor Tamar's Oxford colleague, Michael Innes), including a Clue of a type no-one has got away with since about 1930 (a pen bearing the initials of its owner), a Shakespeare parallel, a complete set of Biggles books, and a motive of considerable antiquity.
Very entertaining, and probably full of hidden in-jokes for tax lawyers as well. show less
Another innovation is an irresponsible visiting uncle straight out of P.G. Wodehouse, who provides his share of laughs for us, as well as allowing Caudwell her silliest dénouement scene yet. The name "Daffodil" should also put us on our guard that this story is full of ironic references to old-style British academic detective stories (such as those of Professor Tamar's Oxford colleague, Michael Innes), including a Clue of a type no-one has got away with since about 1930 (a pen bearing the initials of its owner), a Shakespeare parallel, a complete set of Biggles books, and a motive of considerable antiquity.
Very entertaining, and probably full of hidden in-jokes for tax lawyers as well. show less
This is the first of Caudwell's four crime novels. They are famous in the annals of crime-fiction because we never discover whether her narrator and amateur sleuth, Oxford law professor Hilary Tamar, is a man or a woman. The professor solves crimes together with former student Michael and four of his junior barrister colleagues at Lincoln's Inn.
In this first book, one of the young barristers, the notoriously accident-prone Julia, becomes a suspect in a murder inquiry during a holiday in show more Venice, and her friends are busy trying to clear her name, leading to a scenario that looks like a sort of cross between Donna Leon and John Mortimer (except that Leon's Venetian detective didn't appear on the scene until ten years after this). But the style is very much Caudwell's own, with most of the work done through witty dialogue between Tamar and the young lawyers that is rather in the tradition of P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh, without ever reading like a direct pastiche. The non-dialogue parts of the text are mostly in the form of long, and also very funny, letters between the characters (we have to believe that letters posted in Venice would arrive in London the next day, rather implausible given the state of both British and Italian public services in the late 1970s!). Lots of jokes about chancery law and the art world, lots of LGBT plot interest, and a running gag that any unfamiliar American expressions, criminal slang, or other vulgarity must be "Cambridge idiom". I really don't know how I've gone forty years without finding out about these books! show less
In this first book, one of the young barristers, the notoriously accident-prone Julia, becomes a suspect in a murder inquiry during a holiday in show more Venice, and her friends are busy trying to clear her name, leading to a scenario that looks like a sort of cross between Donna Leon and John Mortimer (except that Leon's Venetian detective didn't appear on the scene until ten years after this). But the style is very much Caudwell's own, with most of the work done through witty dialogue between Tamar and the young lawyers that is rather in the tradition of P.G. Wodehouse and Evelyn Waugh, without ever reading like a direct pastiche. The non-dialogue parts of the text are mostly in the form of long, and also very funny, letters between the characters (we have to believe that letters posted in Venice would arrive in London the next day, rather implausible given the state of both British and Italian public services in the late 1970s!). Lots of jokes about chancery law and the art world, lots of LGBT plot interest, and a running gag that any unfamiliar American expressions, criminal slang, or other vulgarity must be "Cambridge idiom". I really don't know how I've gone forty years without finding out about these books! show less
Oh my god why did I not read this book twenty years ago? It is a strange confection perfectly designed for me. I adored it. It's simultaneously a perfectly functioning mystery novel and a wry, arch, deeply funny novel, and that would be enough. But this book's handling of sexuality and gender is -- I'm not going to say ahead of its time, because that would imply there's been a time when this was normal for the mystery genre. Instead, I'm going to say one of a kind. Exceptional. People are show more queer! Women are sexual! Gender is whatever! It's incredible, and it's so far ahead of anything the genre is doing, and. Just. It's amazing.
GOSH this is a good book. show less
GOSH this is a good book. show less
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