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The Shortest Way to Hades Sarah Caudwell 9780440212331 Books

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The Shortest Way to Hades Sarah Caudwell 9780440212331 Books

Fifty years after it was first read, the Last Will and Testament of Sir James Remington-Fiske is causing trouble. The trust it created stipulated that through the years, the bulk goes to one person, and the fortune is entailed via a complicated set of instructions – for example, the daughter of an elder son comes before the son of an younger son. And the son needs to have survived his wife (which makes it inconvenient if she's still alive).

The current beneficiary, 65 year-old Jocasta, comes to Julia Larwood and her team of London barristers for help in changing the trust. Without the change, the next heir-in-line, her granddaughter, the beautiful Camilla Galloway, will have to pay £3 million estate taxes on a £5 million inheritance.

The problem is that all the cousins have to sign off on changing the trust. Deirdre, a cousin nicknamed "Old Dreary" by the others, decides she deserves a big cash bonus for signing. Which might be why she feels unwell at a family get-together. So unwell that she apparently goes upstairs and throws herself off the balcony to her death.

The courts rule that it is Death By Misadventure, which leaves it to our curious bloodhound barristers, and their great friend, Professor Hilary Tamar, to find the killer.

The writing in every Sarah Caudwell mystery is so intelligent and so funny. The tone is British upper crust and lawyerly obfuscation, and it makes fun of itself. The Prologue begins: "Cost candor what it may, I will not deceive my readers. By some whim of the publishers, and despite my own protests, the ensuing narrative is to be offered to the public in the guise of a work of fiction."

The humor is gentle but sometimes it builds to ridiculousness and I guffaw out loud.
"I am always pleased to see her, for we have several enemies in common."
... or, "But he smiled as he said this a rather Byzantine smile, full of malice and intrigue."

Highly recommended if you don't require a fast pace of your mysteries, and if you like having to work for the jokes.

Happy Reader


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The Shortest Way to Hades Sarah Caudwell 9780440212331 Books Reviews

Sarah Caudwell's dialogue both amuses and stretches. It amuses us because of its delightful humor and sharp exchanges. It stretches us (quick to Google -- at least for me) for historical and classical references that are apropos to the story line. I entitled my review "Too Few" because sadly there are no other books because Ms. Caudwell died in 2000. Enjoy the ones we have; there will not ever be quite another writer who has so many outstanding attributes.
The first page will tell you whether you are going to find unreadable or (like me) find it one of the most entertaining reads of the decade. The style is elaborately witty with nineteenth century diction combined with descriptions of late twentieth century partying and mayhem. It is all very artificial and mannered. The plot is about the murder of beneficiaries of a will and in many ways a classical English whodunnit. The setting is in London lawyers' (sorry barristers') offices (sorry chambers),lesbian nightclubs and the Ionian Islands. Lots of sex but never explicit. A lot of information about English law, classical Greece, sailing and cricket.
The language of the author is very different from what we are used to today. It is very poetic in style with a very British sense of humor. It is an excellent and different read from something you might pick up today.
I bought this as a replacement for a copy I loaned to a friend and never got back. Sarah Caudwell is one of my favorite authors, and it's very sad that she only wrote 4 fabulous books before her untimely death. If you enjoy Edmund Crispin and Dorothy Sayers, I think you will love Sarah Caudwell.
A mystery that makes you think and not just slide along in the story. A lot of references to British law - characters are barristers. It was easy to visualize all the characters and I am left wanting more than the four books Ms. Caudwell wrote before her passing in 2000. I am grateful for the intelligent humor of her books. I have read all 4 and am sharing them with friends and will read again.
Another engrossing and delightfully-told murder mystery by Ms Cauldwell, the third of hers I have read. The plot is a bit tricky, depending as it does on niceties of Greek classical allusions and British law of inheritance, but few could resist a tale so charmingly told. The usual legal characters are back, including Cantrb, Ragwort, Tancred, Selena, and of course Julia. But it is the narrator Law Prof. Hilary Tamar who carries the story, with her shrewd insights into companions and clients alike. The reason I put an asterisk on my title is that this work is only for someone who appreciates droll wry humor and nuance of indirection as opposed to straightforward accounts of direct action.
I must have bought at least 6 copies of the first 3 books in this series (the fourth, The Sibyl in her Grave, was published posthumously and is markedly inferior). When I come across someone with the right sense of humor I lend them the first one (Thus Was Adonis Murdered) and sit back and wait. Then the texts start coming -- here's a hilarious line! Here's another! And then I tell them they don't have to give book 1 back, and I give them book 2. The plots are beautifully convoluted, with a logic all their own that depends on (nicely foreshadowed) bits of legal esoterica. Hilary Tamar, whose sex is never revealed, is a wonderfully realized slightly pompous Oxford don ("By whom, Cantrip? Or, to use the Cambridge idiom, who by?"). If you like P.G. Wodehouse and Jane Austen, you will like these books, even if you don't like cosy murder mysteries. I just wish that the author had survived to write 10 more.
Fifty years after it was first read, the Last Will and Testament of Sir James Remington-Fiske is causing trouble. The trust it created stipulated that through the years, the bulk goes to one person, and the fortune is entailed via a complicated set of instructions – for example, the daughter of an elder son comes before the son of an younger son. And the son needs to have survived his wife (which makes it inconvenient if she's still alive).

The current beneficiary, 65 year-old Jocasta, comes to Julia Larwood and her team of London barristers for help in changing the trust. Without the change, the next heir-in-line, her granddaughter, the beautiful Camilla Galloway, will have to pay £3 million estate taxes on a £5 million inheritance.

The problem is that all the cousins have to sign off on changing the trust. Deirdre, a cousin nicknamed "Old Dreary" by the others, decides she deserves a big cash bonus for signing. Which might be why she feels unwell at a family get-together. So unwell that she apparently goes upstairs and throws herself off the balcony to her death.

The courts rule that it is Death By Misadventure, which leaves it to our curious bloodhound barristers, and their great friend, Professor Hilary Tamar, to find the killer.

The writing in every Sarah Caudwell mystery is so intelligent and so funny. The tone is British upper crust and lawyerly obfuscation, and it makes fun of itself. The Prologue begins "Cost candor what it may, I will not deceive my readers. By some whim of the publishers, and despite my own protests, the ensuing narrative is to be offered to the public in the guise of a work of fiction."

The humor is gentle but sometimes it builds to ridiculousness and I guffaw out loud.
"I am always pleased to see her, for we have several enemies in common."
... or, "But he smiled as he said this a rather Byzantine smile, full of malice and intrigue."

Highly recommended if you don't require a fast pace of your mysteries, and if you like having to work for the jokes.

Happy Reader