A Murder Mystery With Birds

 

Sarah Caudwell's fourth novel in the Hillary Tamar series, The Sibyl in her Grave, is an amusing and rather arch British mystery, very similar to the first two in the series (reviewed here and here). Like the others, it takes place towards the end of the 20th century (published 2000). It revolves around several legal scholars and lawyers, especially tax and financial lawyers, but is full of very eccentric people. And like the others, the story is virtually all revealed by letters. 

A major eccentric character in The Sibyl is the title character, Isabella, a clairvoyant who makes her living telling people's fortunes. At the start, she moves into a large house in a small English village a few hours outside of London, where she makes major changes to the building in the form of a large bird cage. The local resident whose letter describes this situation describes her first encounter with Isabella:

"The conservatory and the area beyond it had been turned into an aviary, now occupied by a flock of ravens—I don’t know how many exactly, but there must have been at least a dozen. It wouldn’t have been so bad if the French windows had been closed, with the ravens safely on the far side—but they were open, and the horrible creatures were flapping and hopping about the drawing room as if they owned the place. ... I was already more disconcerted than I would have liked by finding myself in the same room as a dozen or so ravens. When I realised that I was also sharing it with a vulture, I came closer to screaming than I care to admit." (The Sibyl in Her Grave, p. 36 & 40).

Within a short time, Isabella dies suddenly and somewhat mysteriously, and the various characters spend the rest of the book trying to work out who her clients were and what information was being exchanged, as the major crime mostly seems to be not murder, but insider trading. Can this make an amusing and suspenseful novel? 

Well, yes if Sarah Caudwell is the author. Her style is inimicable, and her choice of material is totally weird but it ends up very amusing because it's so self-consciously clever and arch. For example, a clergyman in the village, who plays a large role in the story is always worried about sin, and the insider trading aspect of the goings-on preys on his mind. His mental state begins to concern the letter writer who mainly tells the story:

"I know nothing of the complexities of the clerical conscience—is there anything I can do to repair the damage? Would it be possible to persuade him that insider dealing, having been a criminal offence only since 1980, cannot in fact be a sin? Or, if it is, venial rather than mortal? Or, if mortal, still not beyond redemption?" (pp. 182-183). 

Another example and then I'm done. One of the characters is invited to an English country hunting retreat, and is getting his guns ready:

"It was, as I have mentioned, the second week of August: that season of the year when the warm days of summer draw luxuriantly towards their fruitful and abundant climax and there is an almost universal impulse to give thanks in some way for the richness and generosity of the earth; that is to say, in the case of an upper-class Englishman, to go out and kill something." (p. 116). 

Sarah Caudwell's books may or may not be to your taste. They are really quite exaggerated but I think the style has grown on me. Unfortunately, Sarah Caudwell died in 2000, so there will never be any more.

Review © 2024 mae sander