Mystery Books News is delighted to welcome Marni Graff as our guest blogger. Marni is the author of The Blue Virgin (Bridle Path Press, Trade Paperback 2010), the first in a series featuring writer Nora Tierney.
Today, Marni writes about murder in Oxford, the setting for her book. And she's also providing our readers with an opportunity to win a copy of her book. Visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the "Marni Graff: The Blue Virgin" contest link, enter your name, e-mail address, and this code (2898) for a chance to win! (One entry per person; contest ends 08/10/2010.)
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“Very nice place, Oxford, I should think, for people who like that sort of place.”
-- George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman
Oxford. The name invokes classic images: ancient golden stone buildings such as the Bodleian Library, which alter dramatically in color according to the light, sitting nestled near bookstores, pubs and cathedral spires; the site of the discovery of penicillin and the founding of auto manufacturer Morris Garages; the home in various centuries of Donne, Shelley, Browning, Wilde, Auden, Tolkien and Lewis Carroll.
The town center features a tall clock tower and a bustling covered market, the latter a delightful maze of crooked cobble-stoned alleys sprinkled liberally with tiny upscale shops, redolent with the jumbled smells of fresh fruits, meats, flowers and baked goods. Its sidewalks overflow with students, tourists and locals, all avoiding the constant stream of busses and cars in the narrow roadways. This is Oxford: a honeyed city less than half a square mile, whose forty-odd colleges swarm with scholars and tourists, and which has captured the imagination of more than one mystery writer with its glimmering spirit, becoming less of a backdrop and more of a character in its own right.
As a seat of academia, the town is a natural draw for writers, including non-crime authors who have called Oxford home, amongst them Kingsley and Martin Amis, William Golding, Graham Greene, John Fowles and Iris Murdoch. But Oxford also provides fertile ground for mystery writers, as evidenced by the continuing stream of writers who set their murders in the hallowed halls and lanes of the town. Why the attraction? After my own visit studying literature at Exeter College, it became apparent to me while walking the twisted lanes and back streets, that the big city atmosphere inside what is really a small town, mixed with the ever-present struggle between “town and gown,” present any mystery writer with the perfect setting for murder and mayhem.
The first graduate credited with using Oxford as a backdrop for murder was J. C. Masterman, author of 1933’s An Oxford Tragedy, who eventually became Provost of Worcester College and received a knighthood in 1959. Other authors inspired to follow his example were graduate Dorothy L. Sayers (Somerville, 1920), who had Harriet Vane unravel a murder in Gaudy Night, Edmund Crispin, Michael Innes, Gwendolyn Butler, and Jeffrey Archer.
A visit to Blackwell’s Bookstore, just across from the Sheldonian Theatre, reveals an entire set of bookshelves devoted to local authors they wish to bring to your attention. Proudly displayed are the enduring mysteries of Colin Dexter, creator of Wagner-loving, hard-drinking Inspector Morse. Actually a Cambridge grad, Dexter lives near Oxford Canal, and a favorite past-time of tourists is spotting him in a local pub. Dexter never revealed Morse’s first name until he killed his detective off in 1999’s The Remorseful Day, setting off rounds of disappointment from mystery fans around the world.
Blackwell’s shelves reveal a wealth of other writers who have deemed Oxford just the place for murder and crime. Historical novels are there from Welsh writer Jane Jakeman (Fool’s Gold) and medieval master Ian Morson (the Falconer series). Perhaps the most ambitious entry is the hefty, intricately-plotted baroque mystery An Instance of the Fingerpost from author Iain Pears, also the creator the Jonathan Argyll mystery series.
Michael Dibdin titled his black comedy Dirty Tricks, and journalist Maureen O’Connor, writing under the pen name Patricia Hall, based Skeleton at the Feast there, featuring Oxford grad DCI Michael Thackery and journalist Laura Ackroyd. Joan Smith writes an Oxford literary thriller series featuring Loretta Lawson, lecturer, writer and sleuth, and Susan Moody brings consummate bridge player Cassie Swain to Oxford in Dummy Hand.
Canadian Marianne Macdonald stayed in England after doing graduate work at Oxford. She created single mum Dido Hoare, who owns an antiquarian bookshop. Smoke Screen takes Dido to the Oxford Autumn Book Fair. Tony Strong’s novel The Poison Tree introduces Terry Williams, who returns to Oxford to complete her doctorate in detective fiction, and finds the detecting too close to home; while Dublin-born Gemma O’Connor, now living in Oxford, explores the disappearance of two men from Oxford in Time to Remember.
Lady Antonia Fraser is one of the few titled women who write mystery fiction. Hers feature television reporter Jemima Shore, who drolly solves yet another murder in Oxford Blood. The stylish and creepy novel Acts of Revision won Martyn Bedford the Yorkshire Post’s Best First Novel Award, and he went on to set his erotic thriller Houdini Girl in Oxford.
Author Peter Millar avoided the university and used Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital and the threat of the plague in his sinister novel Bleak Midwinter. Prolific author Margaret Yorke set her 2000 novel The Price of Guilt amongst the gentle hills and river valleys of Oxfordshire countryside.
The author occupying the most shelf space at Blackwell’s is Veronica Stallwood, who lives near Oxford and has worked in several of the college’s libraries. Her series featuring historical novelist Kate Ivory have become bestsellers. The books all have “Oxford” in the title, from the opener Death and the Oxford Box to Oxford Menace.
Of course this is not a complete list of crime novels set in Oxford, but it should be enough to convince you that the charms of the city were made for crime. Lying at the meeting of the Thames and Cherwell rivers, centrally located just a train ride northwest of London, Oxford is a hub for main roads and railway lines leading to all parts of the UK. Notorious for its snarling traffic jams, which accounts for the multitude of bicyclers, the town remains fondly associated with gargoyles and river punting, with the Oxford University Press and the Randolph Hotel, while still managing to provide more than fertile ground for murder and detection.
M. K. Graff’s first Nora Tierney mystery, The Blue Virgin, is set in Oxford.
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About The Blue Virgin: The mysterious death of Bryn Wallace draws American author Nora Tierney to Oxford to clear her close friend Val Rogan, who has been wrongfully accused of Bryn's murder. Or has she?
Nora quickly becomes embroiled in the murder investigation, much, to the dismay of Detective Inspector Declan Barnes and the illustrator of Nora's children's book, Simon Ramsey. Simon's efforts to save Nora from herself become increasingly frantic as Nora is forced to use her wits and wiles to prove Val's innocence.
For a chance to win a copy of The Blue Virgin, courtesy of the author, visit Mystery Book Contests, click on the "Marni Graff: The Blue Virgin" contest link, and enter your name, e-mail address, and this code (2898) in the entry form. (One entry per person; contest ends 08/10/2010.)
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