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The Oxford Murders

Guillermo Martínez,

Sonia Soto (Translator)

3.30 · Rating details · 4,676 ratings · 536 reviews

Gödel's Theorem of Incompleteness is familiar territory to the young South American mathematician who arrives in Oxford. Murder, however, is not. Yet barely has he greeted his elderly landlady - and her rather luscious granddaughter - when he is bidding her a posthumous farewell. Mrs Eagleton is murdered in her wheelchair. The only clue to the crime is a cryptic symbol and ...more

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Paperback, 197 pages

Published 2005 by Abacus (first published 2001)

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Average rating 3.30 ·

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· 4,676 ratings · 536 reviews

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Oct 21, 2016 Orient rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: people who like math and mystery

Shelves: desperado, killer, psychological

This book combines logic, philosophy and criminal law. It is quite an interesting mystery with a twisty end. The author provided some clues, but even then I was shocked to read the solution. Also I liked the mathematical stuff, like Godel's Theorem, the Pythagorean sect and other. Though as a not so-much-experienced-in-math, I would have wanted some explanations at the end of the book, maybe some notes, made by the author. But I confess, it was interesting to search more info in the Net for furt ...more

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Jul 01, 2011 Marvin rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

This novel has more red herrings than a communist fish market.

But that's OK because I like novels that throws you off and keeps you guessing. Even if some of the herrings are obvious, there are always a few that swim by when you are not expecting them. The Oxford Murders is a nifty mystery about two Oxford academics that are trying to solve a murder and if it seems a little...well...academic. it's because it is. Martinez mixes a nice share of mathematics, Wittgensteinian philosophy and even ...more

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Aug 13, 2019 Matt rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophy-thought-language-logic, tangled-up-in-maths

I watched about one third of the film (starring Frodo Baggins and Winston Smith) and I found the story quite good and interesting enough to switch over to the book before being spoiled by moving pictures.

A series of murders in Oxford, seemingly based on a logical sequence of symbols with some Wittgenstein philosopy, Gödel incompleteness and Heisenberg uncertainty added to the mix.

What’s not to like when mathematics meets murder and logical reasoning solves mysteries? Well, finding the one single “ ...more

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Sep 23, 2013 Anni rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: my-whichbook-reviews

SLEUTHING BY NUMBERS

This is a deceptively easy page-turner and more challenging than it first seems. The intriguing links between mathematics, magic and crime-solving make for a tongue-in-cheek take on the traditional cosy English murder mystery. What's more, the reader can enjoy the added bonus of painlessly absorbing some interesting philosophical concepts along the way.

Extract:-
'The mechanism for corroborating the truth that goes all the way back to Aristotle and ...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Paul Secor rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Not much of a "mystery" - I had it pegged maybe 1/3 of the way through - except for the spin at the end. That would be ok if there were some positives offsetting it. Unfortunately, except for a few graceful passages of writing about Oxford (I've never been there, but what Mr. Martinez wrote felt real to me), there's not much I can say that's positive. The conversations about mathematics were boring and mostly beyond my understanding - not to mention false sounding (real mathematicians wouldn't h ...more

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Jul 23, 2010 Christine rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-agrentine

I like watching Inspector Morse and Inspector Lewis. (Okay, for Inspector Lewis it's because I like Hathaway, but still). I liked Numbers for a bit.

I didn't like this book.

Sometimes I don't mind when you can figure out the solution by page 30. The Blood Doctor is somewhat like that but it is still a good read because of the characters.

Not interesting characters here.

And boy, did I mind.

And the book is like Numbers but after the first season and a half, you ...more

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Sep 21, 2017 Gary Guinn rated it liked it · review of another edition

My actual rating for The Oxford Murders is probably about 3.5 stars because Guillermo Martinez is a good writer. But I would describe this book as a novel written by a mathematician for mathematicians. Almost all the characters, except for the detective, are either professional or amateur mathematicians--including the first victim. And a significant percentage of the 197 pages of the novel consist not of story, but of one mathematician talking to another mathematician about some other mathematician or ...more

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Jun 03, 2009 LJ rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: amateur_sleuth, mystery, mysterybookclub, england, male_author, cozy

First Sentence: Now that the years have passed and everything’s been forgotten, and now that I’ve received a terse e-mail from Scotland with the sad news of Seldom’s death, I feel I can break my silence (which he never asked for anyway) and tell the truth about events that reached the British papers in the summer of ’93 with macabre and sensationalist headlines, but to which Seldom and I always referred – perhaps due to the mathematical connotation – simply as the series, or the Oxford Series. First Sentence: Now that the years have passed and everything’s been forgotten, and now that I’ve received a terse e-mail from Scotland with the sad news of Seldom’s death, I feel I can break my silence (which he never asked for anyway) and tell the truth about events that reached the British papers in the summer of ’93 with macabre and sensationalist headlines, but to which Seldom and I always referred – perhaps due to the mathematical connotation – simply as the series, or the Oxford Series.

An Argentinean graduate student comes to Oxford taking a room within the house of an elderly lady who had helped decipher the Enigma Code during WWII. He meets Arthur Seldom, a renowned logician who is an idol of his. When the student finds his landlady murdered in her parlor, he learns Seldom had received an anonymous note containing a symbol and indication that this was only the first murder to come.

I must confess that math and puzzles of logic are a foreign language to me so many of the discussions in this book were beyond me. As a mystery, it didn’t have much to offer.

Normally, I love books set in England. Here, it didn’t really matter as there was no real sense of place. There was also little character development, including the fact that we never new the name of the narrator nor had any real reason to care about any of the characters.

The book read very flat. There was nothing to draw me in; no suspense, no fascinating characters, no strong sense of place, and event the murders were uneventful. The worst was that I identified the killer almost immediately and, in spite of the twists which ended up being rather silly. I found the ending totally unsatisfying.

The best thing is that the book was short and enables me to move on to my next book very quickly. Mathematicians or logisticians might enjoy this book. I recommend mystery lovers give it a pass.

THE OXFORD MURDERS (Ama. Sleuths-Argentine student/Arthur Seldom-England-Cont) – Poor
Martínez, Guillermo – Standalone
Penguin Books, 2005, Trade paperback – ISBN: 014303796X

...more

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Jun 16, 2008 Gavin rated it really liked it

Shelves: detective

Murder by numbers, quite literally. Two mathematicians, one an ageing professor, the other an eager young student, set out to unravel a series of murders in and around the ancient University city of Oxford.

There are puzzles within puzzles throughout this book, which should keep most people guessing until the denouement, even those eminent mathematicians out there. I recently watched the film adaptation starring John Hurt and Frodo. A good job was done on said adaptation. Both book an ...more

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Jun 19, 2013 Sarah rated it liked it

Shelves: gone, take-a-chance

Very enjoyable. I especially liked the Argentine view of England. It would have been even better if the translator had written it with an accent. Perhaps the best would be an audio reading with an Argentinian accent. I tried to do it in my head but kept slipping back into rather banal english.

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Mar 01, 2010 Valerie rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Kathleen

Recommended to Valerie by: Book Club

Shelves: math, borrowed-from-me

Rant, possibly with spoilers,

As a young girl, I read with my grandma all the Agatha Christie books, and I really enjoyed the ABC Murders, the idea of a logical series being used as a smokescreen was very alluring to me. I am irritated that this book, which takes nearly the same idea, with the same twist, does not in any way allude to or acknowledge, the brilliant Agatha Christie.

I am now going to reread the ABC Murders, perhaps the author paid such delicate homage to her, ...more

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Jan 04, 2012 ✘✘ Sarah ✘✘ (former Nefarious Breeder of Murderous Crustaceans) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: bookcrossing, mysteries-thrillers-suspense

This was an ok read but I don't think I'd pick up another Guillermo Martinez in the future. The plot was interesting enough but the characters were quite flat. One word of advice for those who haven't seen the film adaptation: don't watch it, it's one of the worst book adaptation I've watched!

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Sep 15, 2019 Natalie (CuriousReader) rated it it was ok · review of another edition

I liked the idea of a mystery set in Oxford, with mathematics as a central theme running through it. The story follows a young maths PhD student whose path crosses with a string of murders which he is trying to figure out, alongside his new English friend Seldom - another maths professional, and the police force in Oxford. The deaths almost appear not to be crimes (or have a criminal behind them) but with each dead body there is an encrypted message to go with it, to suggest a serial killer is o ...more

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Dec 26, 2018 Cherie rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: published-since-2000

I did't understand the math stuff but I did know most of the names. The story was arresting and the ending a surprise.

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Oct 30, 2012 Andres rated it liked it · review of another edition

I would not recommend this book to anyone seeking a traditional murder story. In my opinion, any given murder story should be similar to others like it, so readers know what to expect. Also, it should give the reader a chance to be ahead of the detective in solving the mystery, or at least be caught up with him. In this novel, the extensive mathematical logic and long paragraphs the author give us, makes it unable for anyone, except for logicians to follow. Even then, if one were to follow what I would not recommend this book to anyone seeking a traditional murder story. In my opinion, any given murder story should be similar to others like it, so readers know what to expect. Also, it should give the reader a chance to be ahead of the detective in solving the mystery, or at least be caught up with him. In this novel, the extensive mathematical logic and long paragraphs the author give us, makes it unable for anyone, except for logicians to follow. Even then, if one were to follow what the author was failing in explaining, the ending is unexpected, given no clues with which to predict or justify the conclusion.

One could argue the author was being revolutionary by creating a new type of murder story. However, the extensive mathematical explanations take away from enjoying the book and the way Martinez explains it, makes it very hard for one to understand it. The book touches on a lot of concepts which are very capable of confusing a fellow reader and take away from the story. Godel's Incompleteness Theorem, the Pythagorean Society, Wittgenstein, and the solution of the "impossible," Fermat's Last Theorem. What troubles me is that by introducing something so complex as Wittgenstein finite rule paradox, which explains that there are no set patters. That for example, the numbers 1, 2 ,4 and 8 can be followed by any number and not necessarily 16. That “you can always find a justification, a rule, that lets you use any number as the fourth term in the series (Martinez 65)”. By simply stating this, it is capable of making the reader think the works of the detectives are useless and there are no set patterns to the murders. On top of it, many other mathematical theories are introduced that cloud the reader with unneeded information that is very hard to withhold throughout the various events of the story.

Throughout the story, the detectives find and analyze clues with ease without giving a chance for the reader to catch up or follow in their findings. The vast majority of us who aren’t familiar with obscure mathematical cults and the sequence of Pythagorean numbers are left feeling alienated during Martinez’s chapter long maths lectures. Another example of the book using foreign concepts is when they talk about, “The difference between the truth and the part of the truth that can be proved. Godel’s thereom.” In my opinion, this takes away from the experience of reading a book in general. A book should be more than just a story. It should let the reader foreshadow, while still keeping a certain mystery. This way, the reader is still part of the experience without feeling left out for the simple fact that he/she is unable to understand concepts that the author did a bad job in explaining.

The ending itself is another reason why I did not like this book. After explaining a wide variety of foreign concepts, they are not connected to the conclusion of the story and seem unnecessary at the end. Moreover, it seems as if the author was unable to piece together evidence to prove the suspects guilt or innocence. The reader is then forced to be satisfied with having a solution handed to him/her. Denying the reader the satisfaction of a villain being punished or any possible attachment to the characters. Once again, alienating the reader from being a part of the experience.

As one may see, The Oxford Murders is not a book I would recommend to someone seeking a classical murder mystery. For these three main reasons: This book lacks content that most murder mysteries have, the concepts explained make the readers that are not familiar with them, feel left out during chapter long math lectures, and finally, the ending is not well thought out. The Oxford Murders is capable of keeping readers in a haze and ultimately put down the book without first finishing it.
...more

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Oct 30, 2017 G. Lawrence rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Awesome. Loved it. It had the old-fashioned air of an Agatha Christie novel combined with the mystery of maths and murder. Half-guessed the twist at the end, but that didn't spoil it for me a jot. Marvellous book. Highly recommended

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Dec 21, 2017 James rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: latin-american, mystery

I found this short mystery fascinating due to its cerebral nature. Joining serious mathematics with murder made this novel unique in my experience.

When an Argentine math student at Oxford (presumedly based on the author's own experience) discovers the smothered body of his landlady, conventional wisdom points to a family member with the most prosaic of motives. However a famous logician, Arthur Seldom, and author of a book on the mathematics of serial killers, shares the appearance o ...more

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Oct 30, 2017 Patricia rated it liked it · review of another edition

I enjoyed the main plot but there was too much extraneous maths for me. One for the Charity Shop!

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Jul 16, 2011 Lorenzo Berardi rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Shelves: argentinean, 2011, a-my-english-library

I would have never wondered that a movie from Hollywood could have been better than a novel by a writer from Argentina. Which is like saying that I prefer a McDonald's plastic-like burger to a succulent meaty asado. But, well, there's always a first time.

For the big screen version of "The Oxford Murders" is far from being brilliant, but still better than the original version of the story on print. I think this should tell you a lot regarding this novel. And when you do prefer the big I would have never wondered that a movie from Hollywood could have been better than a novel by a writer from Argentina. Which is like saying that I prefer a McDonald's plastic-like burger to a succulent meaty asado. But, well, there's always a first time.

For the big screen version of "The Oxford Murders" is far from being brilliant, but still better than the original version of the story on print. I think this should tell you a lot regarding this novel. And when you do prefer the big-eyed Elijah Wood and his naive American attitude and accent ("I don't understand") to the unnamed Argentinean main character of this book, that means how this novel is a utter failure.

Now call me too harsh, but I actually kind of liked ONLY the opening of this novel with its "Borgesesque" style. Unfortunately, from the second sentence onwards everything began to collapse.

Let's face it: the plot of "The Oxford Murders" is dull. The characters are flat, unrealistic and blabber way too much about their own number theories in a way that has nothing of intellectual but is a mix between a cheap imitation of the scholars' lingo and a Dan Brown outtake.

Not that Martinez prove to be any better of Mr Brown: actually sometimes he is even worse than him. A few lines are absolutely ludicrous especially while the author is trying to add some exciting red hot chili moments to the boring repetition of those number series of him. Number series you can easily find on one of those "Get your IQ in 30 minutes" paperbacks.
In order to excite his little half-wits readers, Martinez calls a thin woman "very huggable" (mmmh, spicy!) and indulges on a supposedly hot scene on a tennis court which made me laugh with astonishment. For those of you who watched the Hollywood movie there is no spaghetti sex in the book, but I have to confess how I actually preferred that blatantly awful scene to the way Martinez write about a love&sex affair.

Moreover, the author doesn't even try to justify his choice of choosing Oxford as the main set of this novel by not creating any atmosphere of the town. It's one year I live in Oxfordshire and, apart from naming some local places here and there, Martinez couldn't catch a hint of the town with its mysteries kept beyond the high walls of the colleges.

The reason why this book gets two stars and not one is merely because I lived in Oxford and feel a kind of sympathy for the novelists who put the town on paper (Waugh, McEwan, Marias...). That and a surprising reference to one of my favourite Italian writers: Dino Buzzati. But it's not showing us that he read Buzzati (and Prevert) and studied a whole lot of maths that Guillermo Martinez can save this book from a well deserved death by numbers.
...more

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Jan 12, 2014 Zuberino rated it liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: murder, oxford, latin-american-literature, england, fiction, oxford-university, translation, crime, detective, argentina

The year is 1993, and a young Argentine mathematician arrives in Oxford to continue his graduate studies. The Oxford Murders begins with so much promise - and yes, so much familiarity! The plane flies across the Atlantic and descends through cloud cover to emerge over the rolling green fields of England. 10 years after the narrator, I took that same plane, took the SAME BUS in fact from Heathrow Airport to the eternal city - the City of Dreaming Spires.

Martinez's descriptions of Oxford will ring a bel The year is 1993, and a young Argentine mathematician arrives in Oxford to continue his graduate studies. The Oxford Murders begins with so much promise - and yes, so much familiarity! The plane flies across the Atlantic and descends through cloud cover to emerge over the rolling green fields of England. 10 years after the narrator, I took that same plane, took the SAME BUS in fact from Heathrow Airport to the eternal city - the City of Dreaming Spires.

Martinez's descriptions of Oxford will ring a bell to anyone who's spent any time there - Cornmarket and Carfax Tower, Merton and Magdalen, the Parks and the Playhouse, Tolkien's pub, the Bodleian, the Ashmolean, the Sheldonian - everything is here, everything, the author faithfully capturing the timeless ambience of a very old and very special town.

There's a terrifying scene set in Radcliffe Hospital where Martinez trots out, of all people, Dino Buzzati whose The Tartar Steppe made such an impression on me last year. A concert ends with a crescendo in Blenheim Palace where I remember a particularly fine summer's day in 2004, surrounded by the sights and sounds of a country fair. Even old Woodstock Road, where I spent a short year stewing in my own infernal juices, makes an appearance... all very nostalgifying, no doubt!

*

Unfortunately, the murder mystery doesn't really match up to the wonderful atmospherics. There are THREE murders to be precise, and it's all tied up somehow with the ancient cult of Pythagoras and his number system. There are a couple of suspects who are lightly fingered before the author lets them go. There is an unnecessary amount of paranormal hocus-pocus. There is a good bit of gratuitous sex. But in the end, I found both puzzle and solution to be rather uninspired. Indeed, the book brought back to me my general dissatisfaction with genre writing of this nature. I've tried over and over, but it just doesn't seem to work for me.

At least, Andrew Wiles lurking in the background with his proof of Fermat's theorem helps to perk up some interest. 1993 was the year that Wiles made headlines across the world, and Martinez gives him plenty of column-inches. An unconventional mystery, then, recommended to everyone with a mathematical bent of mind, but in the final analysis an unsatisfying read. The translator probably didn't do the writer any favours either. Three stars is about right. ...more

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Mar 26, 2007 Roisin rated it liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: crime enthusiast commuters

I have had to give this book three stars because, essentially, it was a really enjoyable read [as most crime novels of this kind are]. However, although its a classic example of a who-dunnit I felt hampered by the fact that it seemed so incredibly badly written and equally poorly edited. I am aware that it is a translation and perhaps this goes some way to excusing it. The fact that the writer is himself a mathmetician and not some kind of writer can barely be seen as an excuse, plently of good I have had to give this book three stars because, essentially, it was a really enjoyable read [as most crime novels of this kind are]. However, although its a classic example of a who-dunnit I felt hampered by the fact that it seemed so incredibly badly written and equally poorly edited. I am aware that it is a translation and perhaps this goes some way to excusing it. The fact that the writer is himself a mathmetician and not some kind of writer can barely be seen as an excuse, plently of good writers are scientists and doctors as opposed to career authors or journalists.
This is such an inexplicably short book. It could easily have covered double the number of pages that it does. It is very unusual for me to complain that a book is too short but the writing here was not so much concise as profoundly under-developed. The characters were so under developed that everyone became a completely plausible culprit to the murders, not because they appeared to have secrets but because the reader simply knew nothing about any of them.
I love reading books and watching films set in locations with which I am familiar so on that level it was, again, an enjoyable read. Apparently the author spent some time living in Oxford and he includes a surprising amount of geographical details [this amount of development is curious considering the profound underdevelopment everywhere else]. Strangely, however, these details are often inaccurate. Oxford maybe small but a brief walk during a cigarette break appears to take the characters a distance of about 2 miles! There were other completely inplausible details - a dead badger left in the road for over a month, amazing yo-yoing weather [I suppose it is England], a stupidly fast romance. Again these all left me wondering why the novel wasn't just twice the length.
Finally I have to complain about the editing of the book. Spelling mistakes I can cope with [as you can tell from reading this review] but these are the least of the worries. The blurb on the back is clearly written by someone who has made no attempts to read the pitifully short book [the first victim was not found dead in their wheelchair at all!]. My copy also contains reviews which appear to be negative, or, at least, not entirely complimentary! This is a very strange tactic for a publisher, reverse marketing?! ...more

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Jul 18, 2013 Fiona rated it it was ok

Shelves: read-in-2013, gentleman-detectives, in-translation

Guillermo, Guillermo, Guillermo. There is a long and illustrious history of fictional policemen running round Oxford after serial killers, and none of them sound like that.

Also I am 30 pages in and it is clearly your man the pathologist. Nobody can pinpoint time of death that accurately, while still at the crime scene, unless they're the one that did it. Just saying.

Now that I've finished it:

Let's face it. This is not a great crime novel. It falls into all the traps - De/>Now ...more

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Mar 04, 2011 Deb rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery

On a summer's day in Oxford, a young Argentine mathematics student finds his landlady - an elderly woman who helped decipher the Enigma Code during World War II - murdered. Meanwhile, leading Oxford logician Arthur Seldom receives an anonymous note bearing a circle and the words, 'the first of the series. Murders begin to pile up - an old man on life-support is found dead with needle punctures in his throat, a percussionist at Blenheim Palace dies before the audience's very eyes - seemingly unco ...more

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Jun 07, 2012 Andrew Paxman rated it really liked it · review of another edition

This is a short, compelling thriller about a series of murders, or what appears to be a series and what appear to be murders, in early 1990s Oxford. What makes it unique is its narration by an Argentine graduate student – modelled on the author, a Buenos Aires mathematics professor – and its interweaving of meditations on mathematical principles, notably those concerning the variety of possible explanations for observed phenomena. This is much less pretentious than it sounds. Though a bit of a s ...more

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Jun 15, 2010 Cori rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Another book that I liked but didn’t love. I think I would have liked it more had I understood the math a little better. For the most part, it was simple and didn’t affect the plot to any degree that made it unintelligible. But there were a few longer sections about mathmatical theory where my brain melted out of my ear and sat in a puddle on the floor, begging me to Stop With The Numbers. The writing was a little dry, but that sort of made sense since the main characters were mathematicians. It ...more

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Sep 08, 2009 Esther rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: mystery-thriller, w-england, author-male, film_reads, my-mooches, zz-2011, zz-2011-from-my-own-shelf, w-oxford-abingdon

Excellent one of the best murder mysteries I've read.
Again I owe a sincere thank you to the person who recommended it though I can't remember who it was or whether the recommendation was due to the maths or the Oxford location.

It is always difficult to good the writing style in translation but it was clear and perfectly pitched to the style of the book. At times it seemed to touch on magical realism.
The math was an important element of the story but it didn't take over and the ...more

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Jun 11, 2013 Graham Crawford rated it did not like it · review of another edition

This book annoyed me but it has many fans (at least in its original language) so maybe there was a problem with the translation. The English prose is flat to the point of banal and the characters are ciphers.

It annoyed me even more because it pretends to be a book about mathematics but it's really a book about (magical) misdirection. I was expecting the plot to mirror a mathematical theory. What I got was a few random, lazy, and poorly explained analogies very loosely based on the uncertainty p ...more

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May 09, 2011 Luke Padgett rated it it was ok · review of another edition

A light quick read about mathematics and murder. Martinez, an Argentinian, is evidentally well known throughout his country as a top mystery writer and I have to admit he does tell a good story. He follows the model of mystery stories set up by the greats such as Christie and P.D. James. Let the reader follow the logic of the mystery to its conclusion and throw a wrinkle in at the end. Maybe its just translated writing, but I always prefer the sparseness of language. Whomever translated this boo ...more

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Jun 07, 2013 Judy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: mystery readers not scared of a little math

Recommended to Judy by: Naomi Jensen

Shelves: my-2013-books

I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery that has two mathematicians as the main characters. As a mathematician, it just tickled that part of me, because I don't find a lot of math in novels. As another reader noted, it loses some of its credibility when one mathematician explains to the other something they both already should know, but in reality it is being elucidated for the reader. This usually works better when written in the third person for that reason. On the other hand, I know when this is ha ...more

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Feb 10, 2010 Cindy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Recommends it for: Nancy

Shelves: mysteries, 2010, diverse-author

A young Argentinian math student gets drawn into a series of murders after his landlady is killed. I'm not sure I want to say more than that, since it will give too much away however, the inside flap of the book tell you everything that happens - except who the murderer is.

I'm not sure who recommended this one, but I couldn't put it down until I was done. It wasn't so much the events, really, although I enjoyed the plot. It was style and the fact that I really had no idea what would ...more

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About Guillermo Martínez

Guillermo Martínez

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Guillermo Martínez is an Argentine novelist and short story writer. He gained a PhD in mathematical logic at the University of Buenos Aires.

After his degree in Argentina, he worked for two years in a postdoctoral position at the Mathematical Institute, Oxford.

His most successful novel has been The Oxford Murders, written in 2003. In the same year, he was awarded the Planeta Prize for ...more