Down Cemetery Road by Mick Herron

Sarah Trafford is bored and frustrated after losing her publishing job, and is especially annoyed when her husband, Mark, forces her to host a dinner party for a pretentious financier, Gerard, and his trophy wife. Gerard enjoys goading Sarah and he is even ruder to the other guests; an interruption by an explosion in the neighborhood is welcome and they all go outside to see what happened.

Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent - my first five-star review of 2026

What could be better than a mystery set in Oxford that features four amateur sleuths who love words?  In this crime fiction debut, Martha Thornhill had been working in Germany for ten years until she is encouraged to apply for a job back home as the senior editor of the Clarendon English Dictionary. She likes her job but there’s a little tension with her three coworkers: Martha knows elegant Alex Monroe could have led the department as effectively as she while Simon Turner is still disappointed he wasn’t chosen.

The Eights by Joanna Miller – 3/20 Books of Summer

In this debut historical novel, which begins in October 1920, four very different young women arrive at Oxford to be part of the first female class actually allowed to matriculate. Brilliant but awkward Beatrice has always been in the shadow of her suffragette mother and yearns for friends; shy Marianne, only child of a poor minister, already wishes she hadn't come, for complicated reasons; 

The It Girl by Ruth Ware

It’s been ten years but Hannah Jones has not recovered from the tragedy that ended her first year at Oxford – when her beautiful, charismatic roommate, April Clarke-Cliveden, was murdered. 

Magpie Lane by Lucy Atkins, suspense fiction set in Oxford

Title: Magpie Lane
Author: Lucy Atkins
Publication: Quercus, hardcover, 2020
Genre: Suspense
Setting: Oxford, Great Britain

Description: Dee, now middle-aged, never made it to Oxford as a student despite her brilliance at mathematics, but she has worked there since her 20s as a nanny, mostly in short-term positions to avoid forming attachments. But Felicity, her current charge, is different.

Day 10 – Oxford

Our group was very excited to visit Oxford, city of dreaming spires, and we were pleased that Dr. Davies, USM’s Head of British Studies, was joining us again. He led us to Marble Arch where we could catch the Oxford coach because it has a stop much closer to the center of town than the train. When we arrived, there was time to walk around before our first appointment.

Vaulted ceiling at the Bodleian

Death at the President's Lodging by Michael Innes - for the #1936 Club

Title: Death at the President’s Lodgings
Author: Michael Innes
Publication: Penguin paperback (originally published in 1936)
Genre: Mystery
Setting: 1930s England

This week Simon from Stuck in a Book and Karen from Kaggsy’s Bookish Ramblings are hosting the 1936 Club, where bloggers read and write about books published in a chosen year.

Description: In this series launch, Inspector John Appleby of Scotland Yard is summoned to Oxford for the difficult and delicate task of investigating the murder of the unpopular Josiah Umpleby, president of St Anthony's College.