Oxford Exit

Oxford University has more than a hundred libraries, some huge and old, like the prestigious Bodleian, some small and idiosyncratic. Each college, each department, runs its own independent library, but their catalogues are linked by computer so that anyone, anywhere in the world, can look in and see who holds what books and just where they are kept. And someone with computer skills can steal valuable books and erase the catalogue records so that no trace of the theft remains. Why not call the police if such a theft is suspected? Some situations are better kept quiet as long as possible. Even England's oldest university has to raise money from modern benefactors, and they might not appreciate a scandal. Enter novelist Kate Ivory, who agrees to a friend's request to accept a special assignment to try to discover what is happening to the books. She doesn't like what she finds. Not only are books disappearing; a young library trainee, Jenna Coates, vanished a year before and was subsequently found murdered. Could there be a connection? Jenna was not particularly popular among her colleagues, but she certainly didn't deserve to be killed. Kate believes that finding her murderer is more important than retrieving books, however rare and valuable.