Death and the Oxford Box: A Mystery Introducing Kate Ivory
by By Stallwood, Veronica
Category: Fiction , General

It's half an hour before dawn on a cold February morning; a mist hangs over the ancient university city of Oxford, shrouding spires and domes and dimming the yellow street lamps. But eight members of the Fridesley Road running group are out on their morning jog.Novelist Kate Ivory runs to keep fit and to clear her mind for her day at the word processor. She also likes to listen to the gossip, and this morning's has an added spice when Rose Smith tearfully confides that her husband, Theo, has left her for another woman.Theo's desertion is bad enough, but he has also taken half of Rose's collection of family heirloom antique enamel boxes and refuses to return them. If Rose cannot retrieve them, her relationship with her wealthy grandmother will be severely threatened.It is Yvonne Baight, the most confident of the jogging group, who hits upon the plan for the joggers to steal back the boxes and provide themselves with a mutual alibi. Encouraged by Yvonne's boldness, the other runners soon convince themselves that they are morally, if not legally, in the right. How could they guess that their little theft will provide the cover for a far more sinister crime and that one of the jogging group will be the victim?Kate soon discovers that several people had reason to kill. But which one of them suddenly took action, and will that person murder again to preserve a deadly secret?Death and the Oxford Box introduces an appealing sleuth in a dynamic new series from one of England's most talented young writers.