Death round the corner

Much like my previous trip to the library, my most recent one left me intending on picking out certain things and coming out with something entirely different. What I'd wanted was crime and at least I got that, but it was one from a 'Why not try one of these?' display case rather than what I'd intended – clearly somewhere along the lines the marketing works. That said, I'm still holding out hope of a Burnt Face Man novel, which would rock my socks, or soemthing equally incredible. After all, crime is a shit that needs wiping up.

In this case, however, I wasn't entirely convinced. I went for The Oxford Murders, something about the familiar is always likely to hold an appeal, and though I'd not heard good thigns about the film, the book was supposed to be pretty decent. I thought it was something of a mixed bag. Reading fiction in translation is never going to be quite like reading the real thing but I still felt it was missing something. Namely description, which gave the book a slightly empty feeling. However, I generally liked the theme, of maths and I thought that was largely well done. I also felt it got better as it went on. I liked the backdrop of Fermat's Last Theorem and the details about the Pythagoreans and it's possibly the subject matter that garnred the book so much attention.

Mostly because I'm not so sure what else it had going for it. What I was less keen on, oddly, was the familiarity. Maybe it's precisely because I know the places mentioned, but particularly to start with, it felt a lot like the was a lot of unnecessary name-dropping of places in a "Look, I've been to Oxford y'know" kind of way. It felt abit like trying too hard, but it's hard to say whether it was natural or not as I'm not an outsider looking in. I also felt the characterisation, like the descriptions was lacking. Indeed, the protagonist seemed utterly devoid of personality. We know he's meant to be smart, we can possibly assume he's good looking because he hooks up with a girl we are assured is smokin' hot. And, er, that's about it. I'd like to say the author can't write women, who all seemed pretty one-dimensional, but then it's not like the men were much better.

Oh, and I guessed whodunnit (which I think is unusual for me) and while the initial idea makes sense, the follow ups made considerably less as far as I'm concerned. And the confession, ending and response left me largely baffled. I'd hoped for more.

Book number: 8
Title: The Oxford Murders
Author: Guillermo Martínez
Category: Crime