A couple of weeks ago – on January 9 to be precise – The Observer recommended The Oxford Murders as its paperback of the week (incidentally, I can’t find the piece on The Observer’s website strangely!).
I was intrigued as it was a book written by an Argentinian, but set in Oxford dealing with a murderer who seems to be leading a mathematical trail behind him. The first victim is a woman who worked at Bletchley Park during the war.
This seemed right up my street so I dashed out the following day to get, only to discover that it wasn’t published until January 20th.
The dates that books appear in the newspapers compared to when they’re actually published is a very strange thing, that I often find completely unfathomable. Of course if the book’s a massive release, then it’s reviewed immediately. But sometimes, reviews appear ages after publication irrespective of them being big new releases. Michael Crichton had State of Fear published back on November 29, for example, since it was in plenty of time for the Christmas rush. Yet The Observer published its review only this week!
That’s quite unusual for a hardback which tend to get better treatment. Ordinarily, it’s the brief reviews of paperbacks that get shunted back in the schedule, appearing sometimes weeks after the bookshops have had copies. And yet of course, with a couple of honourable exceptions, paperbacks sell many more copies that hardbacks, so one would think that many people are awaiting paperback publication of titles they’re looking forward to. When I was younger it was always a real puzzle to me that paperbacks didn’t get a proper review when that was likely to be the point at which most would get to read them. And to an extent, this puzzle remains true. Videos and DVDs get very limited reviews, but then they sell fewer copies compared to the numbers who see in cinemas.
As to the book. Well at 197 pages, you’re not going to be unduly troubled by it. The plot rushes along and is entertaining, with a backdrop of mathematical life in Oxbridge around the time of the Andrew Wiles was proving Fermat’s Theorem. The mathematics, however, isn’t that complicated, although things don’t quite run as you might expect with an obvious suspect fortunately discarded. I don’t know if the author, Guillermo Martinez, has really spent time in Oxford, but the police don’t often carry guns here, and journalists do not travel around Oxford in vans – they tend to be the delivery drivers. But small points like this aside shouldn’t detract from an entertaining romp.