Reading: The Sirens Sang of Murder

The third of Sarah Caudwell's Hilary Tamar mysteries sees Hilary drawn into investigating mysterious goings-on around a Jersey trust fund. As with the earlier books, it's almost an epistolary novel for about the first two-thirds, as Hilary and their friends from the 62 New Square chambers read and discuss correspondence from Cantrip, who is on the scene as advisor to the trust's meeting and is taking advantage of his hotel's telex facilities to send long, chatty accounts of the proceedings. Cantrip's narrative is delightfully Bertie Wooster-ish, while Hilary's parts of the novel continue to be a perfect rendition of the slightly pompous Oxford don (why yes, I do know whereof I speak...). As always, the action is split between Lincoln's Inn and the nearby wine bar the Corkscrew and several rather more exotic locations, in this case the Channel Islands, the Cayman Islands, France and Monte Carlo, and I do find that the sunny settings, along with the wit and general frothiness, make these particularly good books to read in a dull English winter. (I recollect that I liked The Shortest Way to Hades less than the other two, but on reflection that may be because I read it in September while I was on holiday, and I suspect that the sunniness of the books makes them work best when read when it's dark out and the prospect of the next holiday is a distant one.)