An Unsuitable Job For A Woman (1972) – P. D. James

Young Cordelia Gray finds herself the sole owner of a private detective agency after the suicide of her partner Bernie. Fortunately for the business, wealthy scientist Sr Ronald Callendar soon hires her to investigate the death of his son. Not that there was anything suspicious about it. It's just that Mark Callendar committed suicide, and Sir Ronald wants to know why. Cordelia travels to Cambridge to investigate, and inserts herself into Mark's social circle. After spending time at the cottage where he stayed in…

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Death on the Cherwell (1935) – Mavis Doriel Hay

Four undergraduates of the female-only Persephone College, Oxford University, meet on the roof of the boathouse one cold January day to form the Lode League. Its purpose of cursing the hated Bursar of their college, Miss Denning, becomes a bit awkward when the League spot her drowned body drifting downstream in her canoe. The League decides to protect their friends from any accusations by investigating. Death on the Cherwell was another of my holiday reads. I hadn't intended to get it, but Blackwell's Bookshop…

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The Moving Toyshop (1946) – Edmund Crispin

Poet Richard Cadogan is having a bit of a mid-life crisis, and decides that the best remedy is a trip to Oxford, where he studied at University. He gets the adventure he seeks and more after finding a dead body in an abandoned toyshop and being knocked out. On waking up to find the body missing, he then manages to lose the toyshop as well. Luckily, he knows who to turn to in a bizzare criminal situation: Gervase Fen, the eccentric Oxford don whose…

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