Death on the Cherwell

The body of Miss Denning, the bursar of Persephone College has been found dead in her canoe floating down a river and this sets off an inquiry into how that happened. She has a head injury and her clothes are wet, though the interior of the canoe is dry. It's sussed quickly that there's friction bet......more

For me this book was like the Curate's Egg - good in parts! I really enjoyed the conversations that the girls had, and also the book was lifted for me when Sally's sister arrived and later when the Burse's niece finally appeared in Oxford after much discussion of her arrival. There were also a coupl......more

Obviously, when you read this, you can’t help but compare it to Gaudy Night if you’re a Sayers fan, or at least versed in your Golden Age crime fiction. It’s set at a women’s college in Oxford, after all, though it lacks the maturity and reflection of Sayers’ novel — the characters are mostly underg......more

When undergraduates from Oxford's all-girl Persephone College meet on a cold and dreary January afternoon by the River Cherwell for a certain mysterious confabulation, they are surprised by a canoe floating, apparently empty down the river. But as it passes close by beneath them they quickly realise......more

I have a soft spot for British mysteries in academic settings, so I enjoyed this book more than I might have if it had taken place in an office, for instance. The year is 1936, and a flock of first-year students at the fictional women’s Persephone College at Oxford discover the body of the school bu......more