The Oxford Murders: Guillermo Martinez

A few quick notes while the chicken is baking and the corn caramelizing.

Some murder mystery books are bathed in atmosphere. Some in blood. Some in insane intelligence and crazed mwah-ha-has. This one...well, a little bit of everything.

Our protagonist comes to Oxford from Argentina on a year's fellowship. Almost immediately he falls into the company of a brilliant mathematician and embroiled in a murder, that of his elderly landlady. But it soon becomes clear, thanks to a note left for the mathematician, that this murder is only the first in a series and as the mathematical series grows, so do the murders.

Points to this book for a rather interesting premise, and for also a strangely lackadaisical approach. This may be due to the fact that the novel is in translation, and some atmosphere could be lost there as the world the character inhabits is about as grey as an English day. But then again, we're dealing with the minds of many supposedly brilliant mathematicians, so who's to say that their world isn't a practical, pragmatic, black-and-white place? (Any mathematicians out there who care to comment?) I was annoyed by the two main female characters who were typecast: one the infantilized, the other the sexual interest - not a lot of nuance there. Also, much like so many murder mysteries, this one is filled with red herrings. Some are completely obvious. Isn't that the point of the red herring? But - slightly spoiler here - when the entire premise of the book is a red herring, that book moves into a different realm of murder mystery.

It was fine. The novel is short, practically a novella, and fine for a grey winter's day.

The chicken's done.