Tragically a senior professor is assaulted in his rooms and found injured by the porter. Nobody yet suspects Professor Lowell's quiet unmarried life hid a tragic mistake in his past. But someone knew - someone who was not prepared to let him away with it for ever. Anna is a staff member doing admin in the college, so she has to help with notifying students of cancelled classes and so on. Back at her flat she finds one of her dogwalker friends Isadora Salzman has been sent a malicious letter. Could the same person who harmed the professor be threatening her?

The tale harks back to the 1960s when some of the Oxford fraternity were young and impressionable, recovering from the war fought or endured by their parents while threatened by a looming menace of nuclear war and communism. Diary excerpts fills in the blanks where memories fail. As a pleasant counterpoint the dogs need to be exercised in the snow, providing some tranquil and attractive scenes and allowing Anna to do some serious thinking.

This story is full of character, from the fridge which contains five lemons and several bottles of tonic, to the oak-furnished house and lavish Christmas tree of an artist who has a fear of ending up poor and homeless. As the diary entries are all in italics I find them hard on the eyes, but there are not too many of them and the sixties are rather evoked by conversation. With all the jollity around the Christmas preparations it's not the usual suspense novel, but don't blink because someone is about to get hurt.

Annie Dalton has equalled her first crime story with WRITTEN IN RED so anyone who enjoys a modern British story full of intelligence and atmosphere will have a good time. Loving dogs would be a help, but the story is not set at dog shows so the pets are just part of normal life for our heroine and her stalwart friends.

Book Summary