Book Review Oxford Menace by Veronica Stallwood

Oxford Menace
By Veronica Stallwood
(My Copy Headline, 2009)

The first thing to say about Veronica Stallwood’s latest Kate Ivory novel is that although it features a murder and an attack on an Oxford research unit by animal rights campaigners it is nothing like the usual run of crime fiction, at least not most best selling crime fiction anyway.

In this book, as with all her work, the secrets and tensions of family life are as much the focus of the narrative as uncovering a crime and catching its culprit. This could, in the hands of a lesser writer, make for a worthy but rather dull sort of book; Stallwood though has managed to create such a believable and engaging cast of characters that reading her work feels almost like catching up with old friends you haven’t seen for far too long.

It probably isn’t too much of a surprise that her work has yet to make it onto the small screen where car chases and gruesome autopsy scenes are more to producer’s taste, you can’t help thinking though that BBC Radio 4 has missed a pretty big trick by not taking out an option on her books since any of the thirteen Kate Ivory novels would be perfect material for its well respected afternoon plays.