Thus Was Adonis Murdered

Professor Hilary Tamar's young Chancery barrister friends have finished an inheritance case when one of the minor beneficiaries turns up dead. It's assumed to be suicide, and as she wasn't the heiress nobody cares, but when the heiress is involved in an sailing accident in Greece, Hilary realises these were not accidents. In the course of investigation Selena and Julia are being invited upon false pretences to what turns out to be an orgy… But the combined wits and wit of our little group carry the day.

This the third in the Hilary Tamar series, Oxford don who solves the cases brought to the professor's attention by the group of friends who work as lawyers in New Square, London. In this one, Cantrip has gone off to the Channel Islands on a tax-law case, and is indulging his love of telex machines by sending plenty back home. It's through these that Hilary and the others gain enough information to solve a mystery after a companion of Cantrips is killed.

This is the 4th and last Hilary Tamar mystery novel by Sarah Caudwell, who died in 2000. Written in first person by Professor Tamar and including a series of letters by different characters, the story is told of a financial tax mess and a series of strange deaths. Professor Tamar seems to think there is a connection, but is there?

Even though she wrote only four novels, her death was a profound loss, not only in itself but also in that it deprives us forever of learning more of Julia, Selina, Ragwort, Cantrip, Timothy and the eternally mysterious and genderless Professor Hilary Tamar. The book itself? Lovely, cosy, funny, clever, erudite, and ultimately deeply satisfying.