Rating: 5/5
Review:
Brilliant - again!
The Sirens Sang Of Murder is just as good as its two predecessors – which is really saying something.
This time, the mystery revolves around tax-avoidance/evasion. There is a difficulty with a hugely valuable trust whose origins, whereabouts and beneficiaries are deliberately obscure. Young Cantrip (although labouring under what Oxford Professor Hilary Tamar sees as the cruel disadvantage of a mere Cambridge education) is dispatched to Jersey and thence to other tax havens to give advice and then in pursuit of what he sees as possible malfeasance – and of a woman to whom he is strongly attracted. He leaves the others to entertain his aged but robust and outrageous uncle and the usual imbroglio develops, which Hilary disentangles in the end.
It’s a hoot. Don’t expect a lot of fast action, although there are quite violent and mysterious events; the charm and wit of these books is all in the language. The opening chapters where lawyers often discuss tax-dodges in humorously evasive terms may not be to everyone’s taste, but I loved it all. I laughed out loud regularly, especially by Hilary’s narrative voice and Cantrip's lengthy telexes. To be honest, I got slightly lost in the complexities of who stood to benefit from whose death, but I didn’t care. It is so entertaining that I just went with the flow and absolutely loved it. I can recommend this and the others in the series very warmly indeed.
This time, the mystery revolves around tax-avoidance/evasion. There is a difficulty with a hugely valuable trust whose origins, whereabouts and beneficiaries are deliberately obscure. Young Cantrip (although labouring under what Oxford Professor Hilary Tamar sees as the cruel disadvantage of a mere Cambridge education) is dispatched to Jersey and thence to other tax havens to give advice and then in pursuit of what he sees as possible malfeasance – and of a woman to whom he is strongly attracted. He leaves the others to entertain his aged but robust and outrageous uncle and the usual imbroglio develops, which Hilary disentangles in the end.
It’s a hoot. Don’t expect a lot of fast action, although there are quite violent and mysterious events; the charm and wit of these books is all in the language. The opening chapters where lawyers often discuss tax-dodges in humorously evasive terms may not be to everyone’s taste, but I loved it all. I laughed out loud regularly, especially by Hilary’s narrative voice and Cantrip's lengthy telexes. To be honest, I got slightly lost in the complexities of who stood to benefit from whose death, but I didn’t care. It is so entertaining that I just went with the flow and absolutely loved it. I can recommend this and the others in the series very warmly indeed.
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