Mystery/Thriller Book Reviews
The Sibyl in Her Grave by Sarah Caudwell
Delacorte, July, 2000.Hardcover, 296 pages.
ISBN: 0385299346.
Ordering information:
Amazon.com.
The late Sarah Caudwell is remembered for her
wonderfully witty and urbane mysteries which
will be sadly missed by mystery lovers. In this
last installment of her wonderful series of
books about a group of young London
lawyers and Oxford professor Hilary Tamar (whose
gender never has been revealed), Caudwell is
at her very best. This time Hilary is called in to
assist barrister Julia Larwood, whose Aunt Regina
has a tax problem due to a large capital gain
made as a result of some apparently insider
stock trading. Aunt Regina's new neighbor, psychic
counselor Isabella del
Comino turns out to be the source of these insider
stock tips, which led to the untimely gain by Aunt
Regina and several of her friends. But then Isabella
turns up dead in her own home, and it's clear that
foul play is involved. Hilary must find the murderer
and the connection between the insider trading and
the blackmailing of one of the directors of one of Julia's
most valued clients.
The androgynous narrator Hilary Tamar is in fine form with The Sybil in Her Grave. Her mock-heroic style perfectly complements this literate comedy of manners, which sends up the classic English village mystery -- complete with the body in the library, the hysterical niece, and the tippling vicar. The plot is tight, the characters are quirky and Hilary's narration is as enjoyable as ever. As an example of the literate mystery, it doesn't get any better than this.
--Claire E. White
Thunderhead by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child
Warner Books, June 2000.Paperback, 533 pages.
ISBN: 0446608378.
Ordering information:
Amazon.com.
Nora Kelly finds a letter, written sixteen
years ago, from her long lost father
who disappeared while leading an
archaeology expedition. In the letter
Nora's father hints at the discovery of
Quivar, a long lost Anasazi Indian city
that would be a huge archaeological find,
because not much is known about the
Anasazi Indians.
Nora, an archaeologist herself, persuades
Ernest Goddard, chairman
of the board of the Santa Fe
Archaeological Institute, to fund an
expedition to find the city and
hopefully her father, but on one condition -- the
chairman's daughter, a bratty, attractive
Ph. D, must be allowed
come along. Nora also manages to
charm Peter Holroyd, a NASA employee, into using
special radar technology at the Jet
Propulsion Laboratory at Cal Tech to create a
better map of the city, which according
to her father is located in the red rock canyon
country of Southern Utah. He comes
along on the expedition as well, as do several
other personable characters: a chef, a
cowboy, a journalist and a geochronologist.
To locals the lost city is awash with evil and
Nora has her hands
full trying to battle the unknown, as well as
unexpected actions from members of her
own expedition party.
Thunderhead is another riveting thriller from the duo of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. Preston and Child do an excellent job of unveiling archaeological and anthropological facts and mysteries and weaving them into the storyline. As in their other novels (Relic, Reliquary and The Ice Limit), they also excel at telling tales through the eyes of a collection of very different characters. This is another winner from Preston and Child.
Return to the December-January 2001 issue of The IWJ.
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