Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay

Death on the Cherwell by Mavis Doriel Hay ISBN-13: 9781464206597 Paperback: 260 pages Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press Released: Oct. 4, 2016

Source: ebook review copy from the publisher through NetGalley.

Book Description, Modified from NetGalley:
For Miss Cordell, principal of Persephone College, there are two great evils to be feared: unladylike behavior among her students, and bad publicity for the college. So her prim and cozy world is turned upside down when a secret society of undergraduates meets by the river on a gloomy January afternoon, only to find the drowned body of the college bursar floating in her canoe.

The police hope that it's a student prank got out of hand, but the resourceful Persephone girls suspect foul play and decide to investigate on their own. This classic mystery novel, with its evocative setting in an Oxford women’s college, is now republished for the first time since the 1930s.


My Review:
Death on the Cherwell is a mystery that was originally published in 1935 and is set in Oxford. Four girls from the women's college started investigating the mystery (giving it a cozy mystery feel), but soon Detective-Inspector Braydon arrived from Scotland Yard. He asked the girls to tell him the information they had uncovered, set them to explore potentially useful (and less disruptive) avenues, and pulled various clues together to discover whodunit.

There were many, tangled clues, but it wasn't difficult to guess whodunit by the time the detective named his suspect. It was interesting to follow how he sorted out the clues and gathered the needed evidence to arrest the suspect. The antics of the undergraduates were humorous and gave a lighthearted feel to the story.

There was no sex. There was occasional use of bad language. Overall, I'd recommend this enjoyable novel.


If you've read this book, what do you think about it? I'd be honored if you wrote your own opinion of the book in the comments.