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It has taken me a long time to get around to writing up Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar books because I enjoy them so much and I know any attempt to describe what makes them so particularly enjoyable is going to fall totally flat. But here goes!

Hilary Tamar is a professor of law, whose former student, Timothy, shares chambers with several witty and over-educated young junior barristers who keep stumbling over crimes related to tax and murder which Professor Tamar is then obliged to solve for them. Sadly, none of these junior barristers show any kind of proper appreciation for Professor Tamar's efforts, which means that Professor Tamar is unfortunately forced to take on the additional task of explaining the brilliance that went into these deductions.

The cast includes:

Professor Hilary Tamar - wise in conservation of effort (lazy), keen of intellectual curiosity (nosy), an admirer of good food and attractive individuals of any gender (as the books are in first person, Professor Tamar's own gender goes entirely unremarked-upon throughout the series)
Selena Jardine - practical, efficient, looks like a self-satisfied cat
Michael Cantrip - alas, educated at Cambridge rather than Oxford, but un-selfconscious of the lack; cheerful, good-natured, moderately interested in sin
Desmond Ragwort - deplorably high-minded and much-pined over; utter lack of interest in sin of any kind
Julia Larwood - a walking screwball comedy; constantly in thrall to attractive male profiles yet somehow manages to be caught in a compromising position with at least one (1) lesbian per book
Timothy Shepherd - largely irrelevant

The books include:

Thus Was Adonis Murdered, in which Hilary & Co. read through Julia's correspondence from Venice and attempt to determine why she has been accused of murder when it seems far more likely that everyone on the tour has been wanting to murder her
The Shortest Way to Hades, in which there is inheritance drama and a great deal of scandal; Julia's gayest book
The Sirens Sang of Murder, in which Cantrip and Julia's attempt to Co-Write a Best-Seller about Attractive Young Lawyers is only minimally hindered by Cantrip getting involved in a murder plot in the channel islands
The Sybil in Her Grave, in which Julia's aunt is having a good-old fashioned country murder mystery which Hilary & Co. end up crashing; has the saddest end :(

Warning that a solid 50% of the books feature sad gay murder victims but, on the other hand, everything is very queer all the time so this doesn't hit as much as it might. Anyway, they are all very good and very funny and in closing I will leave you with one of my favorite passages, Selena and Julia Attend An Orgy:

“You will be interested to hear, Hilary, that [the drug] had a most remarkable effect — even on Selena after a very modest quantity. She cast off all conventional restraints and devoted herself without shame to the pleasure of the moment.“

I asked for particulars of this uncharacteristic conduct.

"She took from her handbag a paperback edition of Pride and Prejudice and sat on the sofa reading it, declining all offers of conversation.”

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*points to icon*

I ADORE THESE BOOKS. I reread them the other year, when I started working for barristers, and they are reasonably true to life (in the sense that barristers are indeed eccentric, dramatic and very fond of wine).

Caudwell wrote under a pseudonym, and I can't remember what her real name was, but she was a pioneer for women in general, and pipe-smoking women in particular, at the Bar.

Caudwell wrote under a pseudonym, and I can't remember what her real name was, but she was a pioneer for women in general, and pipe-smoking women in particular, at the Bar.

Sarah Cockburn. The rest of her immediate family were or are relatively famous journalists and her half-sister was married to Michael Flanders of Flanders and Swann, which is the point at which I decided her family tree was formally ridiculous. [edit] And her mother was part-inspiration for Sally Bowles. What the hell.

Edited 2017-12-05 02:10 (UTC)

That is so unspeakably extra. I love it.

I love the pipe-smoking! http://www.nytimes.com/2000/02/06/nyregion/sarah-caudwell-60-lawyer-and-author-of-mystery-novels.html

I can't find it now but her London Times obit apparently said

....she also devoted her leisure to intrigues devoted to secure the admission of women to the Union, and supported her fellow students…when they dressed up as men to get into the debating chamber, from which women at that time were excluded. When the discriminatory rule was finally removed, Caudwell became one of the first women to make a speech as a member rather than as a guest.

Yeah, I love her family and also Sarah Caudwell SO MUCH.

Yeah, I love her family and also Sarah Caudwell SO MUCH.

HOORAY THAT DOGGEREL.

I ALSO LOVE THE GOREY COVERS, they are so perfect! I am glad to hear that they are a true and realistic depiction of Life in a Barrister's Office.

That is also my favourite quote!! (although I haven’t read the fourth one because I’ve heard it’s sad and I haven’t been strong enough yet)

It's also very funny still! But it is really the only one I think where you're legitimately sad about the murder victim. (Well, I was a bit sad about the end of the first one, but not nearly as much.)

Warning that a solid 50% of the books feature sad gay murder victims but, on the other hand, everything is very queer all the time so this doesn't hit as much as it might.

To the point where, having read the first three Hilary Tamar novels in high school, I didn't even remember the sad gay murder victims until you mentioned them, although I would have given the stories overall high marks for casual queerness.

[edit] Does the fourth one have the saddest end of the series or the saddest end, full stop? I am thinking about reading it, but also thinking about not being depressed.

Edited 2017-12-05 18:37 (UTC)

Hm, let me put it this way - I went in braced because I'd seen someone refer to the bummer ending, and it was not as bad as I thought it might be from that. Everything is still very funny and all the main cast are doing fine, but the resolution of the mystery involves an extremely sympathetic side character meeting with very bad fortune and revolves on the question of what evil a profoundly good person might be pushed to when under enough personal strain. Let me know if you'd like more explicit details than that and I can provide.

Let me know if you'd like more explicit details than that and I can provide.

Sure; thank you!

OH GOOD.

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER

These are some of my favorite books in the history of books. I want ten thousand of them.

ME TOO but I guess I will have to settle for reading the four we have over and over

*adds to my list* I love a good mystery series.

My favorite new technically-mysteries I've read in an extremely long time!

Professor Tamar's own gender goes entirely unremarked-upon

Maybe not quite unremarked-upon.

In one of the later books (Sibyl, I think?):

READERS: Are you a man or a woman?
PROFESSOR TAMAR: That's very good of you to enquire; I'm very well, thank you. How do you do?
READERS: lol ok but srsly, are you a dude or a lady?
PROFESSOR TAMAR: You are too kind, really. Rest assured, I wouldn't dream of boring you with the details. I understand that you are only asking to be polite.
READERS: but
PROFESSOR TAMAR: Don't worry, I'm not the sort of narrator who bores people by going on about myself at length.
READERS: [rudely add Professor Tamar to a list of female detectives anyway, I am not fucking kidding I saw that somewhere years ago and was LIVID]

Technically, the question of gender is never remarked-upon in-text, it is entirely up to the reader to intuit the question. :D

(Yeah, I think it is Sybil. I love Hilary Tamar so much.)

THESE BOOKS ARE SO AMAZING. I love them so much.

They are a delight and a joy! On the one hand I'm amazed it took me more than 30 years of my life to discover them, but on the other hand, what a good year to discover them.

I really need to finally get around to reading these they sound EXACTLY my sort of thing.

I tried to ration them out and only managed to make it less than a year before I'd gone through them ALL.

I love these a lot.

I am now full on the evangalizing train, handing out copies to everyone who has the bad luck to encounter me in a bookstore.

I love these books so much! And I found the ending of the fourth book both devastating and terrifying. Sad pathetic emotional vampire ...

I JUST WANTED THE VICAR AND HIS ABSENTEE ARCHITECT TO BE HAPPY

She took from her handbag a paperback edition of Pride and Prejudice and sat on the sofa reading it, declining all offers of conversation. And Julia takes out her copy of the Finance Act and tries to explain it to anyone who will listen!

I adore these books, and I'm so sad that there are only four. I could read about the hijinks of the Chancery foursome forever.

DITTO DITTO. When I was on Goodreads I saw someone explaining how sad they were that there was never a Ragwort-centered book and I entirely agree. All the scandalized epistles out of which we were cruelly cheated!

I’m so delighted you liked them!! :D I’ve still only read the first three, and am saving the fourth for a time of great need.

(GIVE CANTRIP SILK)

GIVE CANTRIP SILK

(I love these books beyond REASON, omg)

<3 I was going to link you to this post if you hadn’t seen it!

I hope you know this is definitely how I picture your glamorous legal life.

I tried and tried to save the fourth, I told myself I was only allowed to read them while stressed-out and traveling but the problem is I have just been traveling SO MUCH this year.

(It's not the existence of telex machines that's wrong with the modern world, it's the existence of Cantrip!)

...okay, yes, I am sold, I'm there, yes please.

ALENA PLEASE READ THEM

I AM SO EXCITED FOR THIS LITERARY EXPERIENCE

That quote is my favorite bit of the entire series.

It's mine too! Though there is lots of competition. (Many of the bits in the first book with Ragwort and Cantrip reacting to Julia's discussions of Ragwort and Cantrip hold a special place in my heart.)

I basically never read mysteries, but these do sound fun!

In many ways they read more like comedies of manners than mysteries, though obviously the mystery element is There and Relevant and, you know, people are murdered.

I've only read the first so far and it was a beyootiful delight, I wanted to highlight whole chunks of it to cackle over forever (but didn't, because it was a library book). This reminds me I really need to get the rest! (Though the library is somehow missing book 4, W H Y)

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