A young American grad student visiting Oxford, is drawn into a complex murder mystery when his landlady is brutally slain...

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Product Description

Using rules and axioms, there will always be some propositions that can't be proved either true or false. But can this apply to murder? Godel'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 the words 'the first in the series'. It's not much to go on, but it's enough to appeal to Arthur Seldom, one of the leading minds in logic. His most famous work of philosophy contains a chapter on serial killers. This killer, clearly, has read it. And the second murder, of an elderly hospital patient, confirms that his methods of killing are deliberately designed to appeal to mathematicians. And that he's an intellectual megalomaniac...

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #303068 in Books
• Published on: 2008-04-17
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 208 pages

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Customer Reviews

Disappointing
The author may know a lot about maths but he doesn't seem to know a lot about people. These are some of the flatest characters I have ever encountered...uttering some of the dullest dialogue know to man- (and indeed woman-) kind. The use of Oxford as a location seems based on an afternoon spent on Google...if it wasn't for the constant, and rather irritating, name dropping it could have been anywhere.

Also could someone please tell overseas writers that English policemen do NOT carry concealed weapons...

Downhill after a promising start
At first this novel promised to be a testing and original mystery but sadly by the mid point it was on a downhill path. Even with poor mathematical abilities the culprit and motive were obvious all along. I waited for a surprise twist that never came. One thing in its favour is that it has inspired me to take a look at the theories mentioned. Perhaps there is more to mathematics than tedious school maths classes suggested.

Enjoyable read
Shortly after an Argentinean student arrives in Oxford to study mathematics / logic, he comes home one day to find his landlady has been murdered. The inclusion of mathematics and the associated logical thought processes behind it, presents the basis of an interesting detective novel. OK, there is the odd minor mistake here and there but it is an interesting series of murders to solve. I didn’t think the solution to the murders was obvious at all. Half way through the book and I couldn’t put it down, I had to finish it.

My only real problem was that it was short and I think that the characters could have been expanded both in background and personality, which would have added to my enjoyment of the solution.