Book Review: "The Oxford Murders"

Guillermo Martínez' The Oxford Murders reminded me of something almost as soon as I started reading it. After about forty pages I realized what it was: a particularly insipid episode of "CSI." The book features a hackneyed plot, cliched characters, and nearly every twist is both entirely predictable and eye-rollingly silly. Had Mr. Martínez set out to write a satire of the literary/mathematical mystery thriller genre, he could have done no better. As a serious example of the genre, however, this book fails the laugh test.