‘Thus Was Adonis Murdered’ by Sarah Caudwell

Published by HarperCollins,
19 March 1981.
ISBN: 978-0-00231854-9 (HB)

Following an Arduous and unhappy tussle with the Inland Revenue, as to the amount she owes in taxes, Barrister Julia Larwood decides to take a holiday in Venice, because as her friend Selena reasons, if she takes a holiday she can’t afford to pay the Revenue, but if she doesn’t take a holiday she still can’t afford to pay the Revenue. So, armed with essential documents, such as a ticket, travellers’ cheques, an Italian phrase book, Ragwort’s guide to Venice, and her copy of the Finance act Julia joins an Art Lovers tour bound for Venice.

Her account of her adventures in Venice are relayed to her colleagues in No 62 New Square, Lincoln’s Inn, through a series of letters. Most of which Selena reads aloud over a bottle of Nierstein partaken at the Corkscrew, a wine bar on the north side of High Holborn. And Julia is not dilatory in this, as her first letter is written from the aircraft bearing her to the sweet delights of Venice, brought down to earth by her neighbour in the next seat who introduces himself as Major Linaker and whose hand seems to have penchant for Julia’s knee. It is only in an attempt to avoid his overtures that Julia espies a younger man with a celestial profile, and Julia is lost, too faint with passion to continue.

Julia’s adventures to secure with this adonis a night of passion are slightly singed when she discovers that he is an employee of the Inland Revenue.  So, when he is found dead, with Julia’s copy of the Finance Act lying but a few feet from his body, what can we deduce?

Professor Hilary Tamar on leave from Oxford studying documents in the Public Records Office feels it necessary to proffer some assistance towards securing Julia’s release from incarceration and is met with gratitude from Julia’s colleagues in Lincoln’s Inn. Indeed, the dismay of Julia’s colleagues at No 62 New Square, namely Michael Cantrip, Desmond Ragwort and Selena Jardin at Julia’s predicament goes without saying. But for the masterly intervention of Professor Hilary Tamar, who knows what the outcome might have been.

I cannot recommend this book too highly. The writing is wonderful, and the characters are marvellous.  I loved it. -----
Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes
Other books in the series, The Sibyl in her Grave, The Sirens Sang of Murder and The Shortest Way to Hades.

Sarah Caudwell (1939-2000) was the pseudonym of Sarah Cockburn. She studied law at St Anne's College, Oxford and, practised as a barrister for several years in Lincoln's Inn. She later specialised in international tax planning at a major London bank. She is best known for a series of four murder stories written between 1980 and 1999, centred on the lives of a group of young barristers practicing in Lincoln's Inn and narrated by a Hilary Tamar, a professor of medieval law. She died in January 2000.