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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
You will love it or hate it,
By
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: The Shortest Way to Hades (Mass Market Paperback)
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.
13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Witty and erudite, but nearly a parody,
By Stephen Sossaman (Westfield, Massachusetts, USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Shortest Way to Hades (Mass Market Paperback)
This mystery should please readers who value witty dialog, insoucience, English understatement, and whimsy. As in her first novel, Sarah Caudwell employs an emotionally distancing narrative technique, made necessary by the first person point of view: nearly all the action is summarized in letters read by or to the narrator in a cozy London wine bar (much of the action takes place in the Greek islands). Because the witticisms and droll references to Inland Revenue and the Inns at Court dominate, flavored by piquant satiric jibes at Cambridge and various English eccentricities, Sarah Caudwell is willing to employ (almost to parody) such genre conventions as impausible coincidences and the chatty killer. Readers should not expect emotional involvement and heart-racing suspense, but should rather enjoy the author's playful and allusive detachment. And, happily, there are none of the psychopaths and sadists who people many modern mystery novels. This novel is closer to a traditional cozy, although with an urbane and witty air.
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Witty, engrossing mystery, not just for "legal eagles",
By A Customer
This review is from: The Shortest Way to Hades (Mass Market Paperback)
Sarah Caudwell's mysteries are a treat for lawyers and those involved in the legal profession, but also for readers who enjoy a good, page-turning, British-wit novel. I love Ms. Caudwell's books, second only to the Sherlock Holmes mysteries to me, and eagerly await further adventures of Professor Tamar and the barristers of Lincoln's Inn.
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