2000 mystery, fourth and last of Caudwell's Hilary Tamar series.
Julia's aunt Regina has an annoying new fortune-telling neighbour,
with an even more annoying droopy niece. Julia's colleague Selena has
a client who wants to know which of the underlings at his bank is
abusing his position with insider dealing. Which would all be just a
series of nuisances, until people start to drop dead.
It's the recipe as before: gorgeous prose, and self-satisfied but
still sympathetic people. Even with three deaths, there's considerable
doubt as to whether any murder has been committed, and the narrator
comes up with some thoroughly incorrect theories.
"That, certainly, was of great assistance in establishing how C
died. C's death, however, was peripheral to the main subject of my
investigation—that is to say, the deaths of A and B and the
insider-dealing problem."
"But Hilary, most of your theories about those matters have turned
out to be entirely wrong."
"My dear Selena," I said, "to be always right is the claim of the
charlatan, not of the Scholar. The mark of true Scholarship is a
fearless and unflinching readiness to modify one's theories in the
light of new evidence."
Mysteries can fail by making things too obvious, or by making them too
obscure – and of course the ideal level of obscurity will vary from
one reader to another. Caudwell pitches this at about the right level
for me, but at the same time keeps in plenty of a non-mystery sense of
fun, and with a third hand avoids being too mocking about the ends
of lives or of the personalities of everyone involved. (Usually I find
that there's a tension between a complex plot and complex
characterisations; most authors don't seem to get both into the same
story, and perhaps many mystery readers strongly favour one strand or
the other or at least set their balances somewhere other than where
mine is.)
When I say all and sundry, I mean Isabella del Comino, as she calls
herself, though I doubt if that's the name on her birth certificate,
or on her marriage certificate, if she has such a thing. Which I
dare say she has—men can be complete idiots sometimes.
One does have to be in the right frame of mind for it, of course. I
can see how one might end up being irritated rather than amused by
these people. But the prose seduces me and the red herrings are
enjoyable, and that the action is happening in a small English village
is a small extra bonus for this English mystery fan.
It's true, of course, as I suppose you know by now, that very
good-looking men usually aren't to be trusted, but you must also
remember that even quite ugly men often aren't to be trusted
either. So in the end you might just as well enjoy yourself and be
let down by the good-looking ones.
The solution has the benefit of matching not only the evidence but the
personalities of the people involved. Perhaps the other books were a
little more lively, but I still enjoyed this vastly.
"I should prefer you," said Selena, "not to mention Benjamin Dobble
in my presence. I regard him as the direct cause of all our
troubles."
"That," said Ragwort, "is surely not quite fair."
"Fair?" said Selena, in a tone of astonishment. "What makes you
think that I have any desire to be fair? What I want is someone to
blame and I have chosen Benjamin."
Caudwell (Sarah Cockburn) died before the book was published, and I'm
glad to say nobody has attempted to continue the series. These four
books are what we have (as well as a small number of short stories),
and they're really very good indeed.
Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.