Sarah Caudwell is also the author of Thus Was Adonis Murdered, The Shortest Way to Hades, and The Sirens Sang of Murder. She studied law at St. Anne's College, Oxford, was called to the Chancery Bar, and practiced as a barrister for several years in Lincoln's Inn. She then became a member of the legal section of a major London bank, where she found herself specializing in international tax planning. Sarah Caudwell died in January 2000.

Julia Larwood's Aunt Regina needs help. She and two friends pooled their modest resources and invested in equities. Now the tax man demands his due, but they've already spent the money. How can they dig themselves out of the tax hole? Even more to the point: Can the sin of capital gains trigger corporeal loss?
That's one for the sibyl, psychic counselor Isabella del Comino, who has offended Aunt Regina and her friends by moving into the rectory, plowing under a cherished garden, and establishing an aviary of ravens. When Isabella is found dead, all clues point to death by fiscal misadventure.
So Julia calls in an old friend and Oxford fellow, Professor Hilary Tamar, to follow a money trail that connects Aunt Regina to what appears to be capital fraud — and capital crime. The two women couldn't have a better champion than the erudite Hilary, as once again Sarah Caudwell sweeps us into the scene of the crime, leaving us to ponder the greatest mystery of all: Hilary, him — or her — self.