On a balmy summer's day in Oxford an old lady who once helped decipher the Enigma Code is killed. After receiving a cryptic anonymous note containing only the address and the symbol of a circle, Arthur Seldom, a leading mathematician, arrives to find the body. Then follow more murders - an elderly man on a life-support machine is found dead with needle marks in this throat; the percussionist of an orchestra at a concert at Blenheim Palace dies before the audience's very eyes - seemingly unconnected except for notes appearing in the maths department, for the attention of Seldom. Why is he being targeted as the recipient of these coded messages? All he can conjecture is that it might relate to his latest book, an unexpected bestseller about serial killers and the parallels between investigations into their crimes and certain mathematical theorems. It is left to Seldom and a postgraduate mathematics student to work out the key to the series of symbols before the killer strikes again.
[From: Fantastic Fiction]

THE OXFORD MURDERS by GUILLERMO MARTINEZ (2005) | ISBN: 9780349120942 (UK PB) | Publisher: Abacus (2008 – pages 208)
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PLEASE NOTE: this no longer belongs to Aberdeen City Libraries - it is a WITHDRAWN library book.

Here we go then, updating my BC records with a CONTROLLED RELEASE JE - actually handed this book over during my totally fabby SOMERSET HOLIDAY June/July stay. Didn't have time to read it.

Oh, boy was that holiday ever fun, huge thanks for your wonderful hospitality all! Cheers (with the volume of a Glastonbury loud crowd) to the Flutterbies9 Crew, plus cats.

Picked from the hordes of books rainbow3 took to release on her Somerset visit as I liked the look and precis of this one. Sorry for the (very) delayed journal.

and again with the delayed journal. Needless to say, I've not seen the film but I would think it should be interesting with the cast depicted on the cover of this book.

I actually completed this last weekend but forgot to journal it. I really liked this book - and I am no mathematics whizz, quite the opposite! However, this was written in the present looking back on the events as they happened at that time. The plotline was nicely turned around at the end and although I had guessed right at the start what had happened to the first victim, I was a little diverted by the third only to find I had been correct but there was an unexpected twist even then!
For me, Seldom was a very lonely character, Beth (the first victim's granddaughter) was remote despite being in the same house and in fact, none of the characters were strikingly vivid. However, the human foibles and character traits described so vividly are very familiar.

The Times quote "An intellectual thriller that can be much enjoyed even by those whose grasp of mathematics is limited" is quite valid.

This is going to join a growing pile of books which I mean to release shortly but meanwhile I will make this available.

Released into the Crime bookbox for its new round (7). I've had this one read and available for too long.

Taken from to Flutterbie9's Crime/Mystery Bookbox

A shortish book that, considering there's quite a few mathematical facts, is an easy & compelling read. It's not a gory, tense murder mystery but it kept me entertained trying to suss out the meanings of the clues. Like an Agatha Christie novel, the info to solve the murders is all there it just comes together in a way I don't know whether to describe as bizarre, unbelievable or too reliant on coincidence!

Overall a good read but three things niggled me though:
Firstly Inspector Peterson carrying a gun - in Oxford?!!
Secondly....though it didn't really have a bearing on my enjoyment....I couldn't work out what decade it was set in. The opening paragraph says its the summer of 1993 but it felt "older" to me - maybe it was the mention of fountain pens that took me back! - & for me it could have been set at any time from the 1950s onwards.
Finally I wanted the answer to the
M🖤8 clue. No answer forthcoming in the book -or so I thought! After "solving" it (thanks youtube) I found the answer was sort of there all along ;o)