cover image The Sirens Sang of Murder

The Sirens Sang of Murder

Sarah L. Caudwell. Delacorte Press, $16.95 (276pp) ISBN 978-0-385-29784-4

Astringently British witticisms season Caudwell's third suspense novel with Professor Hilary Tamar of Oxford, as usual, telling the tale. One of her young lawyer friends, Michael Cantrip, is off in the Channel Islands where he joins an international group charged with administering the ``Daffodil Settlement,'' involving a great fortune. Checks on the previous administrators reveal that one of them, a strong swimmer, had drowned during a meeting on the Cayman Islands. Alerted to their friend's possible ``death by misadventure,'' the coterie at Lincoln's Inn flies to his defense. The tensions increase moment by moment, capped by a heady scene between Michael and a charming Italian contessa. Besides giving readers a bewitching mystery, the author absorbs them in the legends of Jersey, Sark, Little Sark--all the storied Channel Islands. Mystery Guild alternate. (Nov.)