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When an Argentine math student discovers the smothered body of his landlady, conventional wisdom points to a family member with the most prosaic of motives. But then renowned logician Arthur Seldom, author of a book on the mathematics of serial killers, tells of a strange note left in his mailbox. The note indicates that the murder is the first in a series linked by a mysterious pattern. Each new death is accompanied by a different mathematical shape. It seems that the serial killer can be show more stopped only if someone can crack the next symbol in the sequence. The leading Oxford logician and the math graduate team up on a quest to crack the cryptic clues. show lessTags
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Member Reviews
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 of a strange note in his mailbox. The murder may be the first of a series linked by a mysterious pattern. More bodies pile up, apparently of natural causes, but each paired with a message bearing a new arcane symbol. Arthur and his student ponder whether the show more deaths are innocent or the subtle, "imperceptible" homicides of a madman seeking to match wits with the great logician, and they rack their brains to decipher a pattern behind the signs before another corpse turns up.
The author, Guillermo Martinez, is a novelist with a Ph.D. in mathematics. His writing style, while conventionally elegant, is enhanced with brief disquisitions on Gödel's theorem, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Wittgenstein's paradox, which demonstrates "the impossibility of establishing an unambiguous rule." While the math may not be essential for solving the crimes, it creates a curious context for the author's exploration of a fundamental mystery theme—how we impose meaningful patterns on the confusing evidence of reality and are in turn misled and blinded by those patterns. The combination of math and mystery works very well in this interesting and intriguing novel. show less
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 of a strange note in his mailbox. The murder may be the first of a series linked by a mysterious pattern. More bodies pile up, apparently of natural causes, but each paired with a message bearing a new arcane symbol. Arthur and his student ponder whether the show more deaths are innocent or the subtle, "imperceptible" homicides of a madman seeking to match wits with the great logician, and they rack their brains to decipher a pattern behind the signs before another corpse turns up.
The author, Guillermo Martinez, is a novelist with a Ph.D. in mathematics. His writing style, while conventionally elegant, is enhanced with brief disquisitions on Gödel's theorem, Heisenberg's uncertainty principle and Wittgenstein's paradox, which demonstrates "the impossibility of establishing an unambiguous rule." While the math may not be essential for solving the crimes, it creates a curious context for the author's exploration of a fundamental mystery theme—how we impose meaningful patterns on the confusing evidence of reality and are in turn misled and blinded by those patterns. The combination of math and mystery works very well in this interesting and intriguing novel. show less
I should preface this by stating that math has always been my nemesis, due to a completely inept math teacher in grade school who left me with minimal knowledge of the basics, and thus ensured me floundering throughout high school math.
This left me with some reservations about picking up a mystery centered around mathematics, but Martinez is a much more capable teacher, and a great writer. The mathematics sections are easy to follow regardless of background knowledge, and the mystery is really intriguing and well plotted.
An Argentinian mathematics student arrives in Oxford to continue his studies, only to find that within days of his arrival, the elderly woman running his boarding house has been murdered, and a mysterious note show more foretelling the death has been left for a famous mathematician. The student is drawn into helping to solve the murders, and must attempt to decipher the mysterious symbols the murderer continues to leave, before the killings begin again. show less
This left me with some reservations about picking up a mystery centered around mathematics, but Martinez is a much more capable teacher, and a great writer. The mathematics sections are easy to follow regardless of background knowledge, and the mystery is really intriguing and well plotted.
An Argentinian mathematics student arrives in Oxford to continue his studies, only to find that within days of his arrival, the elderly woman running his boarding house has been murdered, and a mysterious note show more foretelling the death has been left for a famous mathematician. The student is drawn into helping to solve the murders, and must attempt to decipher the mysterious symbols the murderer continues to leave, before the killings begin again. show less
The plot centers around a string of murders connected by messages containing a series of enigmatic symbols. Eminent Oxford mathematician Arthur Seldom is at the center of the crimes, but is the murderer trying to engage him, impress him, avenge himself upon him, or maybe destroy him?
The story is narrated in the first person by an Argentinian exchange student on a maths grant; however, don't bother getting excited about him as a character because nothing he says, thinks, or does imbues him with any qualities either foreign, exotic, or engaging. Honestly, his sole function seems to be asking Seldom to explain how he arrived at his latest brilliant deduction. Even Dr. Watson managed this with more style.
The author devotes large sections show more of the text to wide-ranging philosophical and mathematical explorations of life, fate, patterns, reality, and illusion. I found these explorations to be well-written, accessible, and thought-provoking, though I'm grateful I brought some background knowledge to the party as Martinez is no Dan Brown - there's not a lot of coddling here. (Brush off your Godel and Escher if you've got them; reintroduce yourself to Heisenberg's uncertainty, and refamiliarize yourself with Schroedinger's feline before beginning.) True, little of this turns out actually to be relevant to the mystery, but it was entertaining enough that I was willing to forgive the author these excesses.
What I'm decidedly less willing to forgive is a plot that was unnecessarily obscure and complex, sloppy, lacking in excitement or suspense, and disturbingly soulless. There's simply no reason for some of the elaborate red herrings the author strews across the path, and no excuse for leaving some of the "clues" (ex: the missing blanket, the apathetic cellist, the married man) unexplained; little excitement (forget suspense) to be derived from hundreds of pages of dialog punctuated by three of the of the dullest murders ever captured in prose; and a disturbing lack of compassion in everyone's reaction to the final act of violence in the story.
Add the nondescript narrator, an unimaginative supporting cast, several strained metaphors (the grossest being a dead badger in the middle of the road), some extremely dubious explanations that seem to require a belief in supernatural forces (or at least a vengeful fate), and a denoument that feels rushed and contrived, and you get a murder mystery where the real mystery is whether others are going to be as willing as I was to stick this out to the end. show less
The story is narrated in the first person by an Argentinian exchange student on a maths grant; however, don't bother getting excited about him as a character because nothing he says, thinks, or does imbues him with any qualities either foreign, exotic, or engaging. Honestly, his sole function seems to be asking Seldom to explain how he arrived at his latest brilliant deduction. Even Dr. Watson managed this with more style.
The author devotes large sections show more of the text to wide-ranging philosophical and mathematical explorations of life, fate, patterns, reality, and illusion. I found these explorations to be well-written, accessible, and thought-provoking, though I'm grateful I brought some background knowledge to the party as Martinez is no Dan Brown - there's not a lot of coddling here. (Brush off your Godel and Escher if you've got them; reintroduce yourself to Heisenberg's uncertainty, and refamiliarize yourself with Schroedinger's feline before beginning.) True, little of this turns out actually to be relevant to the mystery, but it was entertaining enough that I was willing to forgive the author these excesses.
What I'm decidedly less willing to forgive is a plot that was unnecessarily obscure and complex, sloppy, lacking in excitement or suspense, and disturbingly soulless. There's simply no reason for some of the elaborate red herrings the author strews across the path, and no excuse for leaving some of the "clues" (ex: the missing blanket, the apathetic cellist, the married man) unexplained; little excitement (forget suspense) to be derived from hundreds of pages of dialog punctuated by three of the of the dullest murders ever captured in prose; and a disturbing lack of compassion in everyone's reaction to the final act of violence in the story.
Add the nondescript narrator, an unimaginative supporting cast, several strained metaphors (the grossest being a dead badger in the middle of the road), some extremely dubious explanations that seem to require a belief in supernatural forces (or at least a vengeful fate), and a denoument that feels rushed and contrived, and you get a murder mystery where the real mystery is whether others are going to be as willing as I was to stick this out to the end. show less
This is a murder mystery novel written by a mathematician. It reads like a murder mystery novel written by a mathematician.
I was taken in by this novel's claim to intertwine mystery with mathematics. Instead, I found myself rolling my eyes almost immediately at the paper characters, stilted and unnatural dialogues, and continuous appeal to tired, over-played mystery clichés. The novel played out like a bad TV drama, and the reader knows what's going on eons before the supposedly "genius" mathematician narrator. Throw in a complete lack of understanding of criminal investigation (because I'm sure the local police investigating a serial killer would allow a random Oxford grad student to be wandering around town with half their evidence show more in his back pocket, showing it to his friends to get their opinions?!), coupled with an equally inept comprehension of the female psyche (because we regularly jump our complete stranger doubles partners and drag them to the ground on public tennis courts for a little exhibitionist hanky panky?!), and you get what is possibly the only novel that kept me reading solely for the purpose of discovering what new utter nonsense the author could come up with. My personal favorite is when he insists that mathematicians are the pinnacle of intelligence. If that's the case, then clearly intelligence is in no way correlated with writing ability. show less
I was taken in by this novel's claim to intertwine mystery with mathematics. Instead, I found myself rolling my eyes almost immediately at the paper characters, stilted and unnatural dialogues, and continuous appeal to tired, over-played mystery clichés. The novel played out like a bad TV drama, and the reader knows what's going on eons before the supposedly "genius" mathematician narrator. Throw in a complete lack of understanding of criminal investigation (because I'm sure the local police investigating a serial killer would allow a random Oxford grad student to be wandering around town with half their evidence show more in his back pocket, showing it to his friends to get their opinions?!), coupled with an equally inept comprehension of the female psyche (because we regularly jump our complete stranger doubles partners and drag them to the ground on public tennis courts for a little exhibitionist hanky panky?!), and you get what is possibly the only novel that kept me reading solely for the purpose of discovering what new utter nonsense the author could come up with. My personal favorite is when he insists that mathematicians are the pinnacle of intelligence. If that's the case, then clearly intelligence is in no way correlated with writing ability. show less
This was a strange book. The unnamed narrator is an Argentinian graduate student at Oxford, who (together with a famous Mathematician who turns up on the doorstep at the same time) finds his landlady murdered. Further murders follow and the killer leaves a series of clues and mysterious symbols. I really have to stop reading books about Mathematics or Physics and assuming I will be able to understand them. I had to Google the solution to the M heart 8 puzzle and most of the rest of the Maths went over my head.
There were various case histories and descriptions of scientists and theories which, even if you were able to understand them, would I think have detracted from the momentum of the plot. The narrator and the famous Mathematician show more (confusingly called Seldom) were allowed to tag along with the police and discuss the case endlessly with the police inspector and in many ways the whole thing felt fantastic and, at times, distinctly unpleasant.. I didn't have much of a sense of time either - when was this meant to be set? Anyway, something kept me reading to the end, but I won't be reading the second in this series. The ending by the way depended on a big fact completely outside the reader's knowledge... show less
There were various case histories and descriptions of scientists and theories which, even if you were able to understand them, would I think have detracted from the momentum of the plot. The narrator and the famous Mathematician show more (confusingly called Seldom) were allowed to tag along with the police and discuss the case endlessly with the police inspector and in many ways the whole thing felt fantastic and, at times, distinctly unpleasant.. I didn't have much of a sense of time either - when was this meant to be set? Anyway, something kept me reading to the end, but I won't be reading the second in this series. The ending by the way depended on a big fact completely outside the reader's knowledge... show less
The mathematics behind a serial killer. This is one of those murder mysteries where the clues don't add up to the crime. When an elderly woman is found dead everyone presumes a family member committed the crime for the money. The woman was going to die of cancer anyway. Someone just couldn't wait for the inheritance. But, enter world renowned logician Arthur Seldom, author on the mathematics of serial killers, who describes a note left for him indicating this murder is only the first one. There will be more. The curious thing is each subsequent murder victim was already dying of an ailment and every death is accompanied by a strange series of mathematical symbols. It's up to an Argentine math student (loosely based on the author) to show more crack the case. show less
Not long after his arrival in Oxford, a Argentinian graduate mathematics student discovers his elderly landlady's murdered body. The murder doesn't appear to be an isolated event. An Oxford mathematics professor arrived at the scene at the same time as the mathematics student, explaining that he had received an anonymous note about the murder. The note included a mathematical symbol and it claimed it was the first in a series. More deaths follow, each one with a new symbol to add to the series. How quickly can the mathematicians solve the code to catch the killer and prevent more deaths?
When I learned fairly early in the book that the mathematics professor had written a book in which he discusses crime in mathematical terms, I thought show more the plot might develop like an episode of Numbers. Although there are complex mathematical theories and philosophical discussions sprinkled throughout the book, the plot is actually very simple for a mystery novel. I was generous with my rating because I liked the main characters and the Oxford setting. Other readers may find it difficult to overlook the weak mystery and underdeveloped secondary characters. show less
When I learned fairly early in the book that the mathematics professor had written a book in which he discusses crime in mathematical terms, I thought show more the plot might develop like an episode of Numbers. Although there are complex mathematical theories and philosophical discussions sprinkled throughout the book, the plot is actually very simple for a mystery novel. I was generous with my rating because I liked the main characters and the Oxford setting. Other readers may find it difficult to overlook the weak mystery and underdeveloped secondary characters. show less
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The mix of mathematics and murder mystery makes for a powerful cocktail. The Oxford Murders is not the first thriller to combine the two, but it is one of the first to do it successfully.
added by lkernagh
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Author Information
30 Works 2,451 Members
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Common Knowledge
- Canonical title
- The Oxford Murders
- Original title
- Crímenes imperceptibles
- Alternate titles
- Los crímenes de Oxford
- Original publication date
- 2003
- People/Characters
- Seldom; Mrs. Eagleton; Beth Eagleton; Lorna Craig; Inspector Peterson; Detective Sergeant Sacks (show all 8); Podorov; Frank Kalman (Frankie)
- Important places
- Oxfordshire, England, UK; Radcliffe Hospital; Cunliffe Close; Merton College
- Related movies
- The Oxford Murders (2008 | IMDb)
- First words
- 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... (show all) tell the truth about the 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 connotations - simply as the series, or the Oxford series.
- Last words
- (Click to show. Warning: May contain spoilers.)The last shred of flesh had disappeared, and as far as the eye could see, the road stretching ahead of me was clean, clear, innocent once more.
- Original language
- Spanish
Classifications
- Genres
- Fiction and Literature, Mystery
- DDC/MDS
- 813 — Literature & rhetoric American literature in English American fiction in English
- LCC
- PQ7798.23 .A69165 — Language and Literature French, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese literatures Spanish literature Provincial, local, colonial, etc. Spanish America
- BISAC
Statistics
- Members
- 1,607
- Popularity
- 14,025
- Reviews
- 70
- Rating
- (3.15)
- Languages
- 20 — Catalan, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Icelandic, Italian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian (Bokmål), Portuguese, Russian, Croatian, Spanish, Swedish
- Media
- Paper, Audiobook, Ebook
- ISBNs
- 65
- ASINs
- 13