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Review
Pleasantly precise mystification as Mr. Justice Barber's car accident, involving a famous pianist, sets in motion problems and troubles that follow him through the Circuit he is traveling in the south of England. His death and the multiplicity of questions that brings about further the puzzle and provide a superior type of brainteaser. Dry as to humor and plotting, but distinctive. (Kirkus Reviews)
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Book Description
Another reissue of a classic mystery from one of the best-loved and most influential English Golden Age crime writers.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
28 of 28 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a beautifully written, dryly humourous story with an ingenious plot and believable characters in the best classic English detective tradition. The unusual setting of a judge's circuit as he goes round the country trying cases, followed by the shrewd but unambitious Pettigrew, holds the reader's attention to the end.The clues are well laid and the ending is unusually satisfying. The characters are just the right amount larger than life and much funnier. A literate journey through inter-war England.
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Much of the considerable charm of this ingenious crime novel lies in its picturesque period setting, during the phoney war of 1940. The story unfolds as Mr Justice Barber makes his stately progress around the Southern Circuit, calling at one county town after another, to dispense justice in the King's name. This is a world in which an English town, whose court-house has been closed for perhaps five months since the last assize, has only five or six serious cases to be heard, a world where trials are conducted in quaint old court-rooms, where a case of murder can be dealt with in less than two days (the jury considering its verdict for all of half an hour) and where the judge must be treated, quite literally, as though he were the monarch he represents.
Most classic English crime novels are set in a closed community: country house, school, hospital or whatever. But by setting his story on the legal circuit, Hare is able to vary the setting, as the judge and his legal entourage move from Assize Town to Assize Town, each of which has its own special character. But the community - the judge, his wife, his Marshal, his clerk, and a retinue of servants - is still a closed one in which each figure has a significant part to play in the complex and intriguing tale.
The highly engaging cast of characters includes Pettigrew - a sort of proto-Rumpole - an ageing junior barrister whose courtroom wit and occasional levity at judges' expense may have hindered his career; Derek Marshal, the judge's assistant, whose honourable nature and considerable intelligence is somewhat compromised by youth and lack of experience; Lady Barber, the judge's alluring young wife, denied a brilliant career at the Bar because of pre-war prejudice against women, and Beamish, the judge's clerk - a man with more than one secret to hide.
All in all, this novel offers everything the genre ought to offer a reader: an interesting setting, varied and engaging characters, an intricate and intriguing plot and a surprising denoument. And while most crime novels begin with a crime, this one brilliantly varies the classic form by placing the crime at the end of the story! Anyone who enjoys complex and intelligent crime fiction of the old-school, written with dry wit and a certain amused detachment, will relish this novel. That's a promise.
Most classic English crime novels are set in a closed community: country house, school, hospital or whatever. But by setting his story on the legal circuit, Hare is able to vary the setting, as the judge and his legal entourage move from Assize Town to Assize Town, each of which has its own special character. But the community - the judge, his wife, his Marshal, his clerk, and a retinue of servants - is still a closed one in which each figure has a significant part to play in the complex and intriguing tale.
The highly engaging cast of characters includes Pettigrew - a sort of proto-Rumpole - an ageing junior barrister whose courtroom wit and occasional levity at judges' expense may have hindered his career; Derek Marshal, the judge's assistant, whose honourable nature and considerable intelligence is somewhat compromised by youth and lack of experience; Lady Barber, the judge's alluring young wife, denied a brilliant career at the Bar because of pre-war prejudice against women, and Beamish, the judge's clerk - a man with more than one secret to hide.
All in all, this novel offers everything the genre ought to offer a reader: an interesting setting, varied and engaging characters, an intricate and intriguing plot and a surprising denoument. And while most crime novels begin with a crime, this one brilliantly varies the classic form by placing the crime at the end of the story! Anyone who enjoys complex and intelligent crime fiction of the old-school, written with dry wit and a certain amused detachment, will relish this novel. That's a promise.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Cyril Hare is the pen-name of Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark (1900-58), a Rugby and Oxford educated Inner Temple barrister who was called to the bar in 1924 and whose career as both a judge and an excellent fiction writer was cut short by his untimely death. "Tragedy at Law" was published in 1942 and is set in the autumn of 1939 and the spring of 1940 in the fictitious Southern Circuit Assizes. British justice evolved periodically in the 20th Century and this book captures the way it was after the abolition of Grand Juries and before the Quarter Sessions became the full-time Crown Courts.
The traveling circus of the Assizes, moving from one county town to another, at which the judge hears both criminal and civil matters that await him is the back story to this mystery in which the judge seems to be the target of at least one person of ill-will, whilst anticipating being the defendant in litigation that will terminate his career. The characters that accompany him - his young wife, his martial, his clerk and at least one barrister are all suspects as the story progresses through 24 neatly defined chapters, each of which develops the mystery as well as taking us around the circuit of Assize hearings and then back to London and the Central Criminal Court, better known by the name of the street it stands in - Old Bailey.
All the clues are put in place, although the suspense is maintained literally to the last page (but don't bother reading that first, it won't help you) of this novel. The way the story is crafted is actually an excellent study as to how to write fiction; so good, in fact, that I wonder why it didn't make school reading lists when I was a lad. My schoolboy Latin let me down on page 32 - "Fiat Justitia ruat coelum", but the internet helped me make sense of the joke, presented in the rarified atmosphere of the judge being entertained by the bar - the barristers following the circuit.
The first stages of the Second World War form a second back story, the Assize period being during the phoney war and the London-based events climaxing with the fighting in Norway being the main point of the news. Cyril Hare has a dry charm with words - an Act of Parliament is described as having been "composed by an illiterate with a talent for obscurity" - nothing's changed then. One more quote, when the judge considers his position - "of what avail were the constitutional safeguards, the Bill of Rights, the cherished inviolability of his position, against them, whose weapons were the irresistible pressure of public opinion." Gordon Brown might have the answer.
An excellent read and a worthy introduction to this author. I hesitate to pick another of his books just yet, in case they're all the same, like John Grisham's; maybe I'll get over that when choosing holiday reading.
The traveling circus of the Assizes, moving from one county town to another, at which the judge hears both criminal and civil matters that await him is the back story to this mystery in which the judge seems to be the target of at least one person of ill-will, whilst anticipating being the defendant in litigation that will terminate his career. The characters that accompany him - his young wife, his martial, his clerk and at least one barrister are all suspects as the story progresses through 24 neatly defined chapters, each of which develops the mystery as well as taking us around the circuit of Assize hearings and then back to London and the Central Criminal Court, better known by the name of the street it stands in - Old Bailey.
All the clues are put in place, although the suspense is maintained literally to the last page (but don't bother reading that first, it won't help you) of this novel. The way the story is crafted is actually an excellent study as to how to write fiction; so good, in fact, that I wonder why it didn't make school reading lists when I was a lad. My schoolboy Latin let me down on page 32 - "Fiat Justitia ruat coelum", but the internet helped me make sense of the joke, presented in the rarified atmosphere of the judge being entertained by the bar - the barristers following the circuit.
The first stages of the Second World War form a second back story, the Assize period being during the phoney war and the London-based events climaxing with the fighting in Norway being the main point of the news. Cyril Hare has a dry charm with words - an Act of Parliament is described as having been "composed by an illiterate with a talent for obscurity" - nothing's changed then. One more quote, when the judge considers his position - "of what avail were the constitutional safeguards, the Bill of Rights, the cherished inviolability of his position, against them, whose weapons were the irresistible pressure of public opinion." Gordon Brown might have the answer.
An excellent read and a worthy introduction to this author. I hesitate to pick another of his books just yet, in case they're all the same, like John Grisham's; maybe I'll get over that when choosing holiday reading.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Sticking to what you know best
The best of a little series featuring Inspector Mallett and Barrister Francis Pettigrew. Set in the Phoney War we have reference to black-out curtains, babies' respirators and... Read more
Published 16 months ago by Officer Dibble
Classic literary crime novel
HRF Keating selected this book as one one of the 100 best crime novels in his book on the subject over 20 years ago. Read more
Published 23 months ago by notjohn1
an old fashioned treat
"Tragedy at Law" is a delight: literate, funny and very well-informed. P.D.James's recommendation of Cyril Hare must have earned her the gratitude of thousands of detective story... Read more
Published on 20 Oct 2009 by piscator
Packed with Englishness!!!
Tragedy at Law was originally published in 1942 and P.D. James states that it is:
"...regarded by many lawyers as the best English detective story set in the legal... Read more
"...regarded by many lawyers as the best English detective story set in the legal... Read more
Published on 15 July 2009 by Jackie
A nostalgic circuit trip.
I thought I would try this writer and it turned out to be an entertaining trip around the old County courts circuits. Read more
Published on 17 Jun 2009 by G. Bailey
Excellent Detective Fiction
All the other reviewers have written excellent accounts of the storyline, and I totally agree with their enthusiastic comments about this book. Read more
Published on 28 April 2009 by Silverflora
What a jape!
I heard PD James talking about this book on Radio 4, and since I already owned a copy I thought I'd make it my next choice. Read more
Published on 1 April 2009 by E. W. Collier
From the Publisher & Author
From the Publisher
A classic of legal detective fiction
Cyril Hare, the pseudonym of Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark, was born in Surrey in 1900 and practised law both in... Read more
A classic of legal detective fiction
Cyril Hare, the pseudonym of Alfred Alexander Gordon Clark, was born in Surrey in 1900 and practised law both in... Read more
Published on 18 May 2008 by Angel Silver
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