Sarah Cockburn (born May 27, 1939; died January 28, 2000) wrote books under the name Sarah Caudwell. She was a British lawyer and author of detective stories. Between 1980 and 1999, she wrote four murder mystery books. The stories focus on a group of young lawyers working at Lincoln's Inn. The books are told by a character named Hilary Tamar, a professor of medieval law. The character’s gender is not mentioned in the stories, and Hilary Tamar acts as the detective in each story.
Biography
Sarah Cockburn was born on May 27, 1939, in Weir Road, London. Her father was Claud Cockburn, a journalist who supported left-wing ideas, and her mother was Jean Ross, a journalist and political activist. Jean Ross inspired the character Sally Bowles in Christopher Isherwood’s Goodbye to Berlin and its musical version Cabaret. Sarah’s parents were not married, and her father left the family three months after her birth.
Sarah’s half-brothers, Alexander Cockburn, Andrew Cockburn, and Patrick Cockburn, are also journalists. She was the half-sister-in-law of Leslie Cockburn and Michael Flanders. Journalists Laura Flanders and Stephanie Flanders, and actress Olivia Wilde, are her half-nieces.
During World War II, Sarah lived in Welwyn and Stevenage, Hertfordshire, with her mother and maternal grandmother. In 1945, they moved to Cheltenham. In the 1950s, Sarah and her mother moved to Scotland, where she attended Aberdeen High School for Girls. She earned her MA in classics from the University of Aberdeen in 1960 and received a scholarship to study in Greece.
Later, Sarah studied law at St Anne’s College, University of Oxford. She was one of the first two female students invited to speak at the Oxford Union. Her friends, Jenny Grove and Rose Dugdale, dressed in men’s clothes to enter the male-only debating chamber and then asked others to support allowing female students to join. She graduated with her BCL in 1962.
Career
After leaving Oxford, she taught Law at the University College of Wales, Aberystwyth. She then spent a year at Cité Universitaire des Jeunes Filles in Nancy, where she earned a diploma in French law. In 1966, she was admitted to the Bar and joined the Chancery bar. She practiced as a barrister first at the Middle Temple and later at Lincoln's Inn, focusing on property and tax law. She later worked at Lloyds Bank, where she specialized in international tax planning and became a senior executive in the trust department. It was during this time that she began writing.
Fellow barrister John Tackebury praised her achievements: "As a woman, she needed a very strong mind to join the Chancery bar, build a successful practice, and become a senior executive at Lloyds… These institutions were not welcoming to women in high positions, especially to a woman who smoked a pipe."
Personal life and death
Caudwell enjoyed smoking a pipe and solving crosswords. She made it to the final of The Times Crossword Competition more than once. For many years, she lived in Barnes, London, with her mother and aunt. She died from throat cancer on January 28, 2000, in Whitehall, London.
Writing
This series of four books, called "legal whodunits," was written over twenty years. The main setting is the second floor of 62 New Square at Lincoln's Inn, where four young junior lawyers have their offices: Michael Cantrip, Desmond Ragwort, Selena Jardine, and Timothy Shepherd. Timothy appears only occasionally, but Julia Larwood, a tax lawyer who works nearby, is a regular presence and acts as the group's fifth member. These characters have simple traits: Selena is very organized and efficient, Julia is clumsy and disorganized, Cantrip is relaxed and modern, and Ragwort is stylish and traditional. They always speak in a humorous way, even when facing serious danger, keeping the tone light and playful.
The story is told by Professor Hilary Tamar, who acts as both a guide and the main detective. Professor Tamar, a former teacher of Timothy Shepherd, learns about events through long letters and messages sent by telex. The author does not reveal Professor Tamar's gender or explain the strong connection between her and the young lawyers. The stories are detailed and closely tied to specific locations: Venice, Corfu, Sark, and an English village. The author’s knowledge of tax law is often used, especially in cases involving inheritance and financial motives for murder. The books were widely read by legal professionals, including American jurist Robert Bork, who once said, "I believe there can never be too many Sarah Caudwell novels."
Sarah Caudwell also worked on crime-related puzzles with Michael Z. Lewin and Lawrence Block for The Perfect Murder. She wrote a play called The Madman's Advocate, which was performed in Nottingham in 1995. The play explores the 1843 attempt by Daniel M'Naghten to kill Sir Robert Peel and the creation of the M'Naghten Rule, a legal standard for determining whether a defendant is sane.
Awards
The book The Shortest Way to Hades was considered for the Best Novel award at the 1986 Anthony Awards. In 1990, Caudwell received the Best Novel award for The Sirens Sang of Murder in the same category. In 2010, the Japanese edition of The Sibyl in Her Grave was selected as a candidate for the Best Translated Honkaku Mystery of the Decade (2000–2009).