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Book Cover |
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Excerpt |
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"Mrs. Eagleton should be in,
shouldn't she?" Seldom said.
"I
would have thought so," I said. "There's her electric wheelchair. Unless
someone's taken her out by car."
Seldom
rang the bell again and listened at the door. He went to the window that
looked onto the hall, and peered inside.
"Is
there a back door?"" And then, in English, he said: "I'm worried
something might have happened to her."
I could
tell from his face that he was deeply alarmed, as if he knew something
that stopped him concentrating on anything else.
"We
could try the door," I said. "I don't think they lock it during the
day."
Seldom
turned the handle and the door opened quietly. We entered without a
word, the wooden floorboards creaking beneath our steps. Inside we could
hear, like a muffled heartbeat, the stealthy to and fro of a clock's
pendulum. We went through to the sitting room and stopped by the table
in the centre. I pointed to the chaise lounge by the window looking onto
the garden. Mrs. Eagleton was lying there, apparently sleeping deeply,
her face turned toward the back of the chair. One of her pillows was on
the floor, as if it had slipped while she slept. Her bun of white hair
was carefully protected by a hairnet and her glasses lay on the little
table, beside the Scrabble board. It looked as if she had been playing
on her own because the letter racks were both on her side.
Seldom
went over to her. As he touched her lightly on the shoulder her head
fell heavily to one side. Just then we saw her terrified open eyes and
two parallel trails of blood running from her nose to her chin, joining
on her neck. Involuntarily I took a step back and had to stop myself
from crying out. Seldom, who was supporting her head with his arm,
rearranged the body as best as he could and muttered something anxiously
that I didn't catch. He picked up the pillow, uncovering a big red stain
on the carpet that was almost dry in the centre. He stood for a moment
with his arm down by his side, holding the pillow, deep in thought, as
if exploring the ramifications of a complex calculation. He looked truly
perturbed. I said I thought we ought to call the police and he agreed
mechanically. |
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Synopsis |
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At the age of
twenty-two, a young Argentinean mathematician travels to the United
Kingdom for a year scholarship at Oxford University. He has rented a
room in the house of Mrs. Eagleton, and elderly woman in a large house
at the recommendation of a friend.
Mrs. Eagleton's granddaughter, Beth,
is taking care of her while she continues to play in the local
orchestra. The Argentinean mathematician meets Seldom, a famous
mathematician at Oxford and they become fast friends. But when Mrs.
Eagleton is found dead in her sitting room, murdered by suffocation,
they begin to work together with the police to decipher the clue left
behind by the murderer.
The clue consists of both a message and a
symbol. Being mathematicians, they realize that they will need to see a
few more clues before they can decipher the clue, which, unfortunately,
means that more people will have to be murdered. When a second and then
a third elderly person dies, and more clues are found, they fear that
the killer will strike again . . . and soon, this time not just killing
one person, but ten all at once.
The Oxford Murders
is a murder mystery book by
Guillermo Martínez and translated by Sonia Soto. The book takes place
in modern day Oxford University in the United Kingdom and centers around a couple
of mathematicians.
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Review |
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The Oxford
Murders is a different kind of murder mystery.
The main characters are all mathematicians. There are places in the
story where the writer, Guillermo
Martínez gets really heavy into
intricate math, and I got lost. I read those pages, but had no idea what
I was reading about. Also, I am not sure if you ever find out what the
main character's name is . . . at least, I can't seem to remember it.
Most
murder mysteries have the reader follow the detective or the main
character as they
actively investigate the murder. Not so with the main character in The
Oxford Murders. He seems to spend most of his time only focusing on
the clues and does not really seem to be worried about more people
dying. So, although this book mixes mystery and
mathematics, I really couldn't get into the story very well, nor did I
really get to know the main character. To me, there was a little
something missing.
Overall, The Oxford Murders by Guillermo
Martinez is a not bad, but it just didn't grab me and hold my interest
like a great mystery book should.
I rated this book a 6½ out of
10. |
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