Summary: A biographer works to solve a mystery.
Every month Amazon gives away a handful of new releases to drum up reviews and interest. I don’t always look, but it can be worth checking out. The Oxford Detective Society was a free book in July 2026 with a formal release date of August 1, 2026.
The Oxford Detective Society is primarily about Lyssa Moore. An Oxford trained writer who occasionally accepts writing commissions or ghostwriting jobs. She is also a relatively recent widow still grieving the death of her young husband from an undiagnosed congenital heart defect.
The current job is to write a biography about a young aristocrat who helped fund and guide a 60s pop group toward stardom. She and the lead singer were a couple, but things started falling apart when first he died of an apparent drug overdose and she died not too long after in what appeared to be an accidental drowning in her garden pond.
This is a very straightforward mystery that is clearly the set up of a series. The society is about the group of friends in her building that seem to all hang out quite a bit. But there was not a significant involvement from them in solving the mystery. The characters were mostly likable and the action reasonable. I would have like a bit more depth to the story. There were a few red herrings, but the actual solution was fairly predictable.
I did preorder the second book in the series, but that doesn’t come out until April 2027 (the preorder was only $3.99 on kindle). I mostly like mysteries for the characters over time. This has a cast of characters and there is some space for growth, so I will give it another book or so because while it was an enjoyable light cozy read, it also was not hugely memorable.
The Oxford Detective Society by Faith Martin: Paperback, Kindle Edition, Audible.com Audiobook