The Devil in Oxford
The intricate murder mystery series
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- USD 5.99
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- USD 5.99
Descripción editorial
'An excellent addition to a fascinating series . The Devil in Oxford is an outstandingly good read, a page-turner' Mystery People
December, 1922. Ruby Vaughn expects nothing exciting from a quiet pre-Christmas visit to Oxford with her elderly employer, Mr Owen. Far from the strange and sometimes dangerous books that pass through their shop and with Mr Owen due to attend meetings of the antiquarian society, Ruby hopes for a peaceful week. But when the body of disgraced scholar Julius Harker is discovered among his exhibition of Egyptian antiquities, panic spreads throughout the city's cobbled streets.
Drawn reluctantly into the mystery by an old friend, Ruby soon realises Oxford is hiding dangerous secrets - especially when Ruan Kivell, the enigmatic folk healer she met in Cornwall, unexpectedly reappears.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Armstrong crafts a serpentine third historical mystery (after The Secret of the Three Fates) featuring 30-year-old Ruby Vaughn. When Ruby isn't sleuthing, she lives and works alongside her octogenarian employer, Mr. Owen, at their Exeter bookshop. On the week before Christmas in 1923, Mr. Owen suggests the pair spend the holiday in Oxford, where they can attend the annual meeting of an antiquarian society he belongs to. The group is abuzz about a "cache of Egyptian antiquities stolen by Napoleon himself" that the society is preparing to exhibit. Ruby agrees to come along, but the ceremony takes a horrific turn when the body of a disgraced Oxford professor is found crammed into the stone box that is supposed to house the Egyptian antiquities. Ruby jumps on the case, plunging into a convoluted web of drug trafficking and murder that never quite comes into focus. Armstrong lays the red herrings and potential suspects on thick, and while it's often entertaining to follow Ruby as she ping-pongs from clue to clue, readers will find themselves wishing for a bit more substance to the plot and Ruby's characterization. Fans of Armstrong's previous outings may have fun, but this is unlikely to win her new ones.
