I picked this one for 2 reasons. One is that I was preapproved at Netgalley so I thank both Netgalley (https://www.netgalley.com) and Joffe books (https://joffebooks.com/) for the chance to read this before publication. The second is I was a fan of Colin Dexter’s novels which were also set in Oxford. As it turned out this was very different from Colin Dexter’s novels but it was a great read.

The book is “The Oxford Murders” by Peter Tickler. It will be published May 2.

It is the fourth in the Doug Mullen series so I missed out on a bit of background but there was certainly enough to get me into this story. Doug is working as a PI. He is current living with Becca and is sleeping in the couch. They are friends and Becca suspects Doug would like to take things a bit further but she is not ready for that.
Doug meets a young woman at the movies and offer to buy her a drink. She refuses but turns up dead later that night. As the last known to have seen her alive, Doug is immediate a person of interest and perhaps a suspect. A few days later, he meets a potential client in a pub. And she seems to be another murder victim where Doug is again the last known person to see her alive.

Murder, mayhem, madness, twists, and turns make for a very interesting story. It is well told by Peter Tickler. At times I wished I was more aware of some character’s backstories from earlier books in the series. But that did not detract from enjoyment of this book. In fact, I have found that sometimes it is fun to jump into a later book in a series and then read earlier book and see how the characters developed.