Mystery & Thriller
Pub date: 16 February 2026
Five stars 🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟
My thoughts:
I very much enjoyed Susie Dent’s first Oxford set story and was beyond thrilled to be approved for this title by NetGalley and Sourcebooks. Thank you!! I could not wait to sit down with it.
When I read first in the series, Guilty by Definition, I found the mystery to be fascinating. This was a novel where I just kept on turning the pages. Some of the reasons for this were that I loved the Oxford setting, the inside look at the fictional Clarendon Dictionary where the main characters worked (based on the OED), and the characters themselves. I was delighted to catch up with Martha, Safi, Alex and Oliver, among others in death writ large. Their interrelationships add interest to the story.
This book offers a well constructed story. A group of Oxford’s highflying graduates are in someone’s sights. There will be planned destruction for some of them. Why? What does this have to do with a young man who has contributed definition work to the Clarendon and his past history?
To find out what is going on, the dictionary crew will have to contend with the runic alphabet created by someone named Naylor (two of his descendants figure in the story). Cryptic messages using this alphabet are being left around the city. The dictionary team has input into deciphering them, but will they be able to find the killer? Pages will turn as readers wait to find out.
I figured out the “whodunnit” before the end of the novel but that, in no way, diminished by enjoyment. I highly recommend this title. It was everything that I look for in a British, Oxford set story.
Description:
from the publisher
From bestselling author and etymologist Susie Dent comes a follow-up to the critically acclaimed Guilty by Definition. Famed lexicographer Martha Thornhill is back, and when mysterious symbols start to appear near the dead bodies of university lecturers, her linguistic expertise could be the key to unraveling the mystery.
“If ever a book appeared to be designed specifically for me and my colleagues at the [New York Times] Book Review, it would be Dent’s Guilty By Definition, set among the logophiles and pedants of the Clarendon English Dictionary….delightful.” — The New York Times Book Review
“Will enthrall crime aficionados, puzzle solvers, Anglophiles and logophiles…fiendishly clever and marvelously entertaining debut?the perfect tonic for any philobiblist’s mubble-fubbles.” — The Washington Post
A dead writer’s alphabet. A living killer’s cryptic messages.
When mysterious symbols begin cropping up around Oxford, most dismiss them as bizarre graffiti. But lexicographer Martha Thornhill knows better. She recognizes the symbols from a runic alphabet created by a deceased fantasy writer whose papers she once worked on. When the graffiti is found near the body of a university lecturer, Martha knows this is no publicity stunt.
And when the suspicious death is assumed by police to be a suicide, she’s not the only one to have doubts. Called upon to lend their linguistic expertise to the case, Martha and her colleagues begin to unearth a tragedy that extends beyond the ancient walls of the university. As new messages portend more death, it’s clear that a spirit of vengeance is stalking the city’s streets. Together, they must find who is behind the cryptic messages, before they become the next victims.
Comments:
‘A MUST-READ’ Woman’s Own
‘A CLEVER, TWISTY MYSTERY’ Good Housekeeping
