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
This is the first in a wonderful series set in a London barristers office. Sadly, Caudwell died young and only wrote four in the series, of which I’ve read three. Funny, literary, with fabulous writing, this is a series to savour.
When the maladroit Julia, one of the barristers, went to Venice in search of romance, she wrote frequent letters to her colleagues detailing progress that they gathered over coffee to read together. Her adventure turned alarming when she was arrested for show more murdering the Adonis whose bed she shared.
The elegant and very proper language, detailed to a level only lawyers and academics can achieve, was so much fun to read. The surprise denouement fitted perfectly. show less
When the maladroit Julia, one of the barristers, went to Venice in search of romance, she wrote frequent letters to her colleagues detailing progress that they gathered over coffee to read together. Her adventure turned alarming when she was arrested for show more murdering the Adonis whose bed she shared.
The elegant and very proper language, detailed to a level only lawyers and academics can achieve, was so much fun to read. The surprise denouement fitted perfectly. 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
If "Friends and Sex in the City" had been on the telly in the 1980s, Sarah Caudwell's London group of bawdy and horny barristers could have been the cast. With grammatically excellent dialogue often demonstrating its P G Wodehouse/ Oscar Wilde antecedents, this book was fun to read just for the wit and language. A complex plot entwined within 1980's Venetian Art Tourism cum London's Lincoln Inn legal locales is enhanced by a set of very interesting if eccentric characters to complete the show more package.
The author's, Sarah Cockburn in real life, life style strongly remind you of Katherine Hepburn with a real British accent and history. She wrote only 4 books and I am anticipating similar good read's with the other three. She is my second, 4 books only, author recently discovered. The other was Kate Ross, both discovered through Librarything communiques. show less
The author's, Sarah Cockburn in real life, life style strongly remind you of Katherine Hepburn with a real British accent and history. She wrote only 4 books and I am anticipating similar good read's with the other three. She is my second, 4 books only, author recently discovered. The other was Kate Ross, both discovered through Librarything communiques. show less
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