The Devil in Oxford
The intricate murder mystery series
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- $399.00
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- $399.00
Descripción editorial
December, 1922. Ruby Vaughn is looking forward to a quiet, relaxing trip to Oxford in the week before Christmas with her octogenarian housemate and colleague Mr Owen. Far away from the arcane, unusual - and occasionally illegal - books that seem to always get her into trouble. The most she expects to do is attend a handful of his antiquarian society meetings.
But when the body of disgraced scholar Julius Harker is amongst his exhibition of Egyptian antiquities looted by Napoleon, panic spreads throughout the cobbled streets of Oxford. The last thing Ruby wants is another investigation, but then an old friend comes begging for her help. If that wasn't enough, her past insists on haunting her when Ruan Kivell, the intriguing folk healer that she met in Cornwall, suddenly reappears. It seems there is much more going on in Oxford that meets the eye.
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.
