Thus Was Adonis Murdered - A Novel

Informationen zum Autor Sarah Caudwell , the pipe-smoking author of  Thus Was Adonis Murdered  and three other novels featuring Oxford Don Hilary Tamar, died in 2000. “Hilary’s voice was in my head before any of the plots,” Caudwell told writer Martin Edwards in an interview for  Mystery Scene . “I knew from the outset Hilary must be an Oxford don—but of equivocal sex and even equivocal age, resembling that precise, donnish kind of individual who starts being elderly at the age of twenty-two.” Klappentext The first mystery in Caudwell's popular series featuring amateur investigator Hilary Tamar and a cast of clever and trouble-prone young London barristers. When a young man is found dead in Julia Larwood's bed, her barrister friends are the only ones who can uncover the truth of this masterpiece of murder. Leseprobe Chapter 1 Scholarship asks, thank God, no recompense but Truth. It is not for the sake of material reward that she (Scholarship) pursues her (Truth) through the undergrowth of Ignorance, shining on Obscurity the bright torch of Reason and clearing aside the tangled thorns of Error with the keen secateurs of Intellect. Nor is it for the sake of public glory and the applause of the multitude: the scholar is indifferent to vulgar acclaim. Nor is it even in the hope that those few intimate friends who have observed at first hand the labour of the chase will mark with a word or two of discerning congratulation its eventual achievement. Which is very fortunate, because they don’t. If the events in which Julia Larwood became involved last September had not been subjected to the penetrating scrutiny of the trained scholar—that is to say, my own—well, I do not say it is certain that Julia would even now be languishing in a Venetian prison. The crime being thought to be one of passion, great lenience might have been shown; the Italian Government might have declared an amnesty; the Foreign Office might have done something. Very possibly. I do say, however, that it was only as a result of my own investigation that Julia’s innocence was conclusively established and that she returned to England without a stain on her character. As an instance of what the methods of Scholarship may achieve, the affair seems not unworthy of some written record. And you may think, dear reader, that those who had been able—modesty forbids me to say, if others do not choose to, privileged—to observe for themselves the process of my reasoning would have competed in eagerness to undertake the task. How little, if you think so, do you know the Chancery Bar. Timothy Shepherd—additionally inspired by the reverence which ought to be felt for his former tutor—that is to say, myself—Timothy, you might imagine, would have been delighted by the opportunity. But no—Timothy has a case on the Companies Act coming up in the House of Lords; he is weeks behind with his paperwork; he cannot do it. Selena Jardine, who is fond of Julia and would have been distressed by her prolonged incarceration—no, Selena is engaged in a planning enquiry on behalf of certain objectors to a road-widening scheme; she is months behind with her paperwork; she cannot possibly do it. Michael Cantrip and Desmond Ragwort, of the same Chambers—Cantrip is instructed on behalf of a lady who claims by custom immemorial to be entitled to hang her washing across her neighbour’s garden; the neighbour has instructed Ragwort to oppose the claim; they confidently expect the matter to occupy their attention for the best part of term, and that of a High Court Judge for at least a fortnight: no, clearly they cannot do it. I am obliged, therefore, with some reluctance, to do the thing myself. It means my own work must be laid aside: the day must be deferred to a yet more distant future which sees the publication of Causa in the Early Common Law by Hilary Tamar and the appearance in learned journals of such phrases a...

Product details

• Authors: Sarah Caudwell, A.J. Finn
• Publisher: Bantam Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 04.04.2023
• EAN: 9780593598733
• ISBN: 978-0-593-59873-3
• No. of pages: 288
• Dimensions: 131 mm x 202 mm x 15 mm
• Subject: Fiction > Suspense