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Death on the Cherwell (British Library Crime…
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Death on the Cherwell (British Library Crime Classics) (originale 1935; edizione 2014)

di Mavis Doriel Hay (Autore)

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2721696,834 (3.26)45
Classic Literature. Fiction. Mystery. Historical Fiction. HTML:

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder

"Hay, who also wrote Murder Underground, crafted a witty and sometimes scathing account of women at Oxford at a time when they were only grudgingly accepted." â??Booklist

For Miss Cordell, principal of Persephone College, there are two great evils to be feared: unladylike behavior among her students, and bad publicity for the college. So her prim and cozy world is turned upside down when a secret society of undergraduates meets by the river on a gloomy January afternoon, only to find the drowned body of the college bursar floating in her canoe.

The police assume that a student prank got out of hand, but the resourceful Persephone girls suspect foul play, and take the investigation into their own hands. Soon they uncover the tangled secrets that led to the bursar's deathâ??and the clues that point to a fellow student.

This classic mystery novel, with its evocative setting in an Oxford women's college, is now republished for the first time since the 1930s, with an introduction by the award-winning crime writer Stephen Booth… (altro)

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» Vedi le 45 citazioni

a fictional glimpse into the past - reminded me of Hillcrest - fun to read about Oxford from a less haughty perspective ( )
  Overgaard | Jan 27, 2023 |
I did get to the end of this but it was a struggle. I could barely remember who was who - and they all behaved very strangely. Pretty boring I'm afraid. ( )
  infjsarah | Dec 27, 2022 |
Written in 1935 and this is fairly obvious by the style of story telling which does occasional get a bit irritating.
On a January afternoon in Oxford the body of the college bursar of Persephone College is found dead in her canoe by four of the college's students. It is these Persephone girls who suspect foul play and decide to investigate.
A NetGalley Book ( )
  Vesper1931 | Jul 29, 2021 |
So much unfulfilled potential.

An Oxford setting, a mysterious death, college intrigue, and an underlying issue that is worthy of discussion and that would still have been a taboo at the time of writing. Seriously, there was so much in this book that should have been the foundation of an excellent book.

However, the potential was spoiled by TSTL characters that dominated the first half of the book for no reason - absolutely none! - and was made worse by (if that is possible with TSTL characters) by pretty explicit racism. I know, I know, it was acceptable at the time...yadda, yadda.

But here is the thing...it contributed absolutely nothing to the story. What was the point? It only made the characters more stupid than they were already. Tho, granted, that was a feat on the part of the author that I had not expected.

It doesn't help, of course, that the book was published in the same year and has a very similar setting to Gaudy Night, which is one of the best books I have read this year and is now firmly placed on the list of my all-time favourite books.
Where Sayers showed us how to write a Golden Age mystery set in Oxford, Hay showed us how not to do it.

If it had not been for familiarity with Oxford from either personal experience or other sources, I am not sure that Oxford setting really came to the fore in Hay's book. Sure, we have punting, a river, and a fairly nondescript college, but where is the description of the city? Where is the atmosphere? The closest I found to an Oxford description was when two of the students discuss Blackwell's bookshop. That was all.

Just as ubiquitous yellow fog does not create a Victorian London setting, there is more to Oxford than Blackwell's and punting.

I expected more.

There are issues with the mystery, too.

Again, the main characters were too immature - childish even - to pass for first-year students. The police were too all-knowing and presumptive to pass for detectives.

The real issue I have, however, is that the actual interesting plot twist is left to the last chapters of the book and is not actually used to discuss the intricacies of the deficiencies in the mores of the time. Sure, it would have been a topic that was unmentionable at the time, but if the author didn't want to discuss it and the hypocrisy around it, why would she use it as the underlying reason for the entire story?

I expected more. Much more. ( )
  BrokenTune | May 26, 2020 |
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» Aggiungi altri autori

Nome dell'autoreRuoloTipo di autoreOpera?Stato
Hay, Mavis Dorielautore primariotutte le edizioniconfermato
Booth, StephenIntroduzioneautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato
Tomlinson, PatienceNarratoreautore secondarioalcune edizioniconfermato

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A sloping roof of cold, corrugated iron, above the sliding, brownish waters of the river Cherwell and beneath the stark boughs of a willow, might not appeal to a sane adult human being as an ideal resort at four o'clock on a gloomy January afternoon.
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Classic Literature. Fiction. Mystery. Historical Fiction. HTML:

Mystery crime fiction written in the Golden Age of Murder

"Hay, who also wrote Murder Underground, crafted a witty and sometimes scathing account of women at Oxford at a time when they were only grudgingly accepted." â??Booklist

For Miss Cordell, principal of Persephone College, there are two great evils to be feared: unladylike behavior among her students, and bad publicity for the college. So her prim and cozy world is turned upside down when a secret society of undergraduates meets by the river on a gloomy January afternoon, only to find the drowned body of the college bursar floating in her canoe.

The police assume that a student prank got out of hand, but the resourceful Persephone girls suspect foul play, and take the investigation into their own hands. Soon they uncover the tangled secrets that led to the bursar's deathâ??and the clues that point to a fellow student.

This classic mystery novel, with its evocative setting in an Oxford women's college, is now republished for the first time since the 1930s, with an introduction by the award-winning crime writer Stephen Booth

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