Helpful Score: 8
I bought this book not knowing what to expect really. I'm not a "math" or numbers person and was fearful it would be over my head in that department. I couldn't have been more wrong. Martinez makes the math and numbers game easy to understand and weaves a really incredible story about murder and deciphering. I highly recommend it!
Helpful Score: 4
This book started out a bit slow, but picked up. Definitely will keep you guessing right up until the end.
Helpful Score: 3
Great relatively short but entertaining story. Not as mathematical as you might think but with a twist ending. Unusual story line. Plods a bit at first but I read the last third of the book at one sitting. Worth the read.
Helpful Score: 1
captures the atmosphere of Oxford; elegant and spare writer's voice
Helpful Score: 1
A unique mathematical mystery. Having returned recently from Oxford, I enjoyed it very much.
I thoroughly enjoyed this mystery that has two mathematicians as the main characters. As a mathematician, it just tickled that part of me, because I don't find a lot of math in novels. As another reader noted, it loses some of its credibility when one mathematician explains to the other something they both already should know, but in reality it is being elucidated for the reader. This usually works better when written in the third person for that reason. On the other hand, I know when this is happening in a book, and it really doesn't bother me. First person gave us so much more insight into the twists of the tale. I liked that fact that I didn't fully guess the answer to the mystery before the end. Setting a story in charming Oxford is just the icing on the cake. Recommended!
Excellent murder mystery
I enjoyed this mystery. Has its mathmatics back story but not enough to scare the non-mathematician. Appeals to those of an accademic bent and those who like English, esp. Oxford settings. Reminds a little of an Inspector Morse story.
very good read but you need to have some concept of upper level mathematics to be able to get the real intrigue from it.
I am not a mathematically inclined person. I think you need to be in order to enjoy this book. They mystery was good, but the math stuff totally lost me!
This is a delightful book in the style of Agatha Christi.
An Argentine Graduate who is studying advanced maths (Maths play a role, but don't be scared) discovers a murder. In the process of helping to solve one, others occur.
It's a pleasant read, I recommend it.
An Argentine Graduate who is studying advanced maths (Maths play a role, but don't be scared) discovers a murder. In the process of helping to solve one, others occur.
It's a pleasant read, I recommend it.
The twenty-two years old Argentine math student finds the smothered corpse of his elderly landlady, Mrs. Eagleton the police assume a relative did the deed. However, at the same time that the woman was murdered, Oxford logician Arthur Seldom, author of a book on the mathematics of serial killers, receives an enigmatic note that implies this homicide is the first of a series linked by a strange pattern with Mrs. Eagleton representing the circle.
