Why a Booktrail?
2000s: A woman is murdered in the ground of Oxford University. When the husband investigates, he finds many secrets hidden behind its walls
Every Contact Leaves A Trace
What you need to know before your trail
If you were to ask me to tell you about my wife, I would have to warn you at the outset that I don’t know a great deal about her. Or at least not as much as I thought I did.
This is the story of of Alex, a lawyer, and how, on a visit back to their old Oxford college, his beautiful wife Rachel is mysteriously murdered on Midsummer’s night .As Alex retraces the events of that night and their history at Oxford, he realises how little he knew of Rachel and is drawn into discovering how she died.
Travel Guide
Oxford is as much a character in this novel as Alex and his wife are to be honest. The book really brings across the atmosphere at this elite academic world.
Oxford University
Oxford University is a unique and historic institution, a perfect setting for a search for the truth with plenty of research and interviews to find the answers. Oxford is the oldest university in the English-speaking world, and is made up of 38 autonomous colleges.
Christ Church is the most famous (you may recognise Hogwarts Hall) but other colleges of note are St Hilda’s overlooking the river, Brasenose with its stunning gardens and of course the clock tower of Magdalen College. There is a really fascinating guided walk and you’ll be inspired to do this to really find out more about what you come across in the novels and to visit the places and areas of the academic world, you would normally not have the chance to do.
Worchester College
Worchester College is the one featured in the book and a creepy sense of intrigue swirls through the prose like mist amongst the spires. Does the mist serve to settle answers or raise more?
The college is near the centre of Oxford today, but it was on the edge of the city in the eighteenth century. Thanks to this, it has managed to keep extensive and impressive gardens which have won numerous awards and which even have their own blog maintained by the head gardener and his team to give people an insight into the world in the work involved in maintaining them. And what a lot of effort goes into it!. Too beautiful for a murder…..
The buildings of the college are diverse. One of which is a row of medieval buildings known as “the cottages”, which are among the oldest residential buildings in the city. They were actually part of the formally a college for monks founded in 1283 and dissolved under Henry VIII in about 1539.
Where Next?
