Hilary Tamar: Difference between revisions

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{{quote| On my first day in London I made an early start. Reaching the Public Records Office not much after ten, I soon secured the papers needed for my research and settled in my place. I became, as is the way of the scholar, so deeply absorbed as to lose all consciousness of my surroundings or the passage of time. When at last I came to myself it was almost eleven, and I was quite exhausted: I knew I could not prudently continue without refreshment.}}

{{quote|On my first day in London I made an early start. Reaching the Public Records Office not much after ten, I soon secured the papers needed for my research and settled in my place. I became, as is the way of the scholar, so deeply absorbed as to lose all consciousness of my surroundings or the passage of time. When at last I came to myself it was almost eleven, and I was quite exhausted: I knew I could not prudently continue without refreshment.}}

The Hilary Tamar books are a series of witty first-person mystery novels by Sarah Caudwell, whose eponymous protagonist is probably one of the laziest detectives in literary history.

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* [[Heterosexual Life Partners]]: Julia and Selena, complete with the obligatory continuous [[Mistaken for Gay]].

* [[I Have Many Names]]: Discussed with reference to Greek places in ''The Shortest Way to Hades'':

{{quote| We came without further misadventure to the island which I call Corfu, which its inhabitants call Kekira, which ancient historians call Corcyra, and which Homer calls Scheria, the land of the Phaecians -- never try to tell me that the Greeks don't do this on purpose.}}

{{quote|We came without further misadventure to the island which I call Corfu, which its inhabitants call Kekira, which ancient historians call Corcyra, and which Homer calls Scheria, the land of the Phaecians -- never try to tell me that the Greeks don't do this on purpose.}}

* [[I Have This Friend]]: In ''The Shortest Way To Hades'', Lucian and Lucinda try this on Hilary, who doesn't buy it.

* [[Intoxication Ensues]]: In ''The Shortest Way To Hades'', the fudge that Julia and Selena eat while at Rupert Galloway's party/orgy is spiked, leading them to "cast off all conventional restraints and devote [themselves] without shame to the pleasures of the moment." In Selena's case, this means reading a copy of ''[[Pride and Prejudice]]'' while ignoring anyone who tries to talk to her; in Julia's case, it means explaining the effect of Section 478 of the Taxes Act to anyone who's willing to listen.

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* [[Never Suicide]]: Deirdre's death in ''The Shortest Way To Hades'' is initially ruled a suicide.

* [[No Except Yes]]:

{{quote| "It's not exactly," said Selena, "that [Julia]'s unobservant. It's just that she doesn't always notice what's happening."}}

{{quote|"It's not exactly," said Selena, "that [Julia]'s unobservant. It's just that she doesn't always notice what's happening."}}

* [[Noodle Incident]]: Everything involving Cantrip and Julia's past relationship seems to fall into this category. There's one April Fool's Day incident involving spiders, something else that happened right after Julia won a case about goldfish, and so on.

* [[No Sense of Direction]]: Julia gets lost constantly; this is an important plot point in ''Thus Was Adonis Murdered''.

* [[Oop North]]: Geoffrey Bolton in ''The Sybil In Her Grave'' is a bank director with a prominent accent of this sort. {{spoiler|It turns out that he's exaggerating the accent -- and the stereotypes associated with it -- to mess with a co-worker he doesn't like.}}

* [[A Party - Also Known as an Orgy]]: Julia and Selena accidentally end up at one in ''The Shortest Way to Hades''.

{{quote| "Julia was afraid we might be committing some sort of solecism by not taking our clothes off; but I thought we could regard the occasion as one at which dress was optional."}}

{{quote|"Julia was afraid we might be committing some sort of solecism by not taking our clothes off; but I thought we could regard the occasion as one at which dress was optional."}}

* [[Red Herring]]: Quite a few elaborate ones. In particular, ''The Sybil In Her Grave'', {{spoiler|all the mysterious deaths turn out to be entirely unrelated to the insider trading problem that initially attracts Hilary's attention to them.}}

* [[Sorry, I'm Gay]]: Julia deliberately makes Malvoisin think she's a lesbian in ''The Sirens Sang of Murder'' in an attempt to make it easier to turn down his advances without ruining their business relationship.