The Shortest Way to Hades - (Hilary Tamar) by Sarah Caudwell (Paperback)

About the Book

Each member of "the nursery", a group of brilliant yet sometimes bungling young barristers, has one member of a wealthy British family as a client. When they suspect that a murderer's afoot in the family's complex real estate tax case, they once again call in their friend Hilary Tamar, brilliant Oxford don.

Book Synopsis

Inheritance becomes deadly in this gripping literary puzzle--the second installment of the Hilary Tamar mysteries that began with Thus Was Adonis Murdered.

"Sarah Caudwell is one of my very favorite mystery writers."--A. J. Finn, New York Times bestselling author of The Woman in the Window

Die first, pay later.

It seemed the perfect way to avoid three million in taxes on a five-million-pound estate: change the trust arrangement. Everyone in the family agreed to support the heiress, the ravishing raven-haired Camilla Galloway, in her court petition--except dreary Cousin Deirdre, who suddenly demanded a small fortune for her signature.

Then Deirdre had a terrible accident. That was when the young London barristers handling the trust--Cantrip, Selena, Timothy, Ragwort, and Julia--summoned their Oxford friend Professor Hilary Tamar to Lincoln's Inn. Julia thinks it's murder. Hilary demurs. Why didn't the heiress die? But when the accidents escalate and they learn of the naked lunch at Uncle Rupert's, Hilary the Scholar embarks on the most perilous quest of all: the truth.

Don't miss any of Sarah Caudwell's riveting Hilary Tamar mysteries:
THUS WAS ADONIS MURDERED - THE SHORTEST WAY TO HADES - THE SIRENS SANG OF MURDER - THE SIBYL IN HER GRAVE

Review Quotes

Praise for Thus Was Adonis Murdered

"A tour de force . . . a hilarious comedy of manners."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch

"An absolutely delightful mystery--erudite, witty, believable."--The Arizona Daily Star

"Witty . . . clever . . . an elaborately plotted, very English and charming story."--Publishers Weekly

"Caudwell's light touch and the puzzle she presents make for a diverting tale."--The Washington Post Book World

"A finely honed, icily witty gem of detective fiction."--Mystery News

About the Author

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."