Back in 2023, as we emerged from the pandemic, Val McDermid wrote that: ‘particularly in the tough times we’ve all endured lately, reading a parlour-game whodunnit without gory details or visceral descriptions of violence can be exactly the comfort we need, because we know, no matter what happens, there will be a happy ending’. McDermid is introducing a wonderful novel by Edmund Crispin, The Long Divorce, which opens in Oxford. McDermid’s words are if anything more relevant now in 2025.

In the fitting setting of The Abingdon Arms, local author and academic Anna Beer will be exploring what exactly delights us in crime fiction (especially ‘cosy crime’) and asking just why there are, and have been, so many murder mysteries set in Oxford.

Anna has been thinking a lot about these matters, because after many years of writing non-fiction, for specialists and non-specialist readers, she has just published her first murder mystery. And it’s set in Oxford (and a village nearby…)

This talk will be given in the pub and not recorded.