Rating: 
Summary: Brilliantly funny whodunnit
Review: This is the first of Sarah Caudwell's dazzling series of legal whodunnits narrated by Hilary Temple, Oxford professor of Legal History. Hilary's friends are a group of young barristers in Chancery Lane, her former pupil, Timothy, the elegant and austere Ragwort, imaginative, impulisve Cantrip, Selena, who is like 'a Persian cat that has just completed a succesful cross-examination', and romantic, suceptible, accident-prone Julia. Julia is having some unplesantness with the Tax man, so she decides to get away from it all by going on an Art Lovers tour of Italy. Here she succumbs to the charms of a grgeous young man called Ned. Then one day, after she has enjoyed an afternoon of passion with Ned, she finds him dead in bed. Ned was an employee of the Inland Revenue, which means, as Ragwort reasonably points out, that anyone might have murdered him. Unfortunatley, however, Julia is chief suspect, so her friends set out to prove her innocence. They track down the other participants on the Art Lovers tour to try and get at the truth. Cantrip has to interview a dodgy art dealer, the Major, who spends their time together telling Cantrip all about the women in his life. "He's known a lot of women. The right sort of women, the wrong sort of women. Wome who would, women who wouldn't, women who might have. He told me about them all." This is an absolutely wonderful book, ingeneous, complex plot, funny and likeable characters, witty dialogue, and a laugh in just about every paragrah.
Rating: 
Summary: Droll, and dry as champagne!
Review: This was my first exposure to the (lamentably) late Sarah Caudwell. I am looking forward to reading her other three mysteries, but I will have to portion them out slowly, to prolong the enjoyment.I am happy to note how many of the previous reviewers "got" this book. Of course it is improbable, arch, extremely verbose and polysyllabic, that is the total raison-d'etre of such a book. The situations and the characters are very funny, with the ludicrous misadventures of the hapless and hopeless Julia tying them all together. I found myself snorting out loud on numerous occasions, such as the moment after the Major tries to convince Julia that the beauteous Ned, object of her lustful attentions, is most likely gay, and not the sort of chap he would want to share a tent with. Julia reflects: "... Indeed , if is a benevolent dispensation of Providence that those who express most dread of an unorthodox advance are usually those whom Nature has most effectively protected from any risk of one." A splendid romp of a book. Oh, and by the way, I am convinced that Prof Hilary Tamar is a man.
Rating:
Summary: Droll, and dry as champagne!
Review: This was my first exposure to the (lamentably) late Sarah Caudwell. I am looking forward to reading her other three mysteries, but I will have to portion them out slowly, to prolong the enjoyment. I am happy to note how many of the previous reviewers "got" this book. Of course it is improbable, arch, extremely verbose and polysyllabic, that is the total raison-d'etre of such a book. The situations and the characters are very funny, with the ludicrous misadventures of the hapless and hopeless Julia tying them all together. I found myself snorting out loud on numerous occasions, such as the moment after the Major tries to convince Julia that the beauteous Ned, object of her lustful attentions, is most likely gay, and not the sort of chap he would want to share a tent with. Julia reflects: "... Indeed , if is a benevolent dispensation of Providence that those who express most dread of an unorthodox advance are usually those whom Nature has most effectively protected from any risk of one." A splendid romp of a book. Oh, and by the way, I am convinced that Prof Hilary Tamar is a man.
|
