The Oxford Murders: analysis and themes

Oxford Murders

Matinez, Guillermo. The Oxford Murders. MacAdam/Cage, 2005.

The Oxford Murders is the story of an unnamed Argentinean mathematician studying at Oxford. One day, while accompanied by his landlady's friend, the don and professor of mathematics Arthur Seldom, the two find Mrs. Eagleton murdered on her sofa. The only clue, other than the fact that the old woman worked on the Enigma Code during World War II, is a circle left by the killer in a mysterious note sent to Seldom, along with the lines, "the first in a series." Soon it becomes clear there is apparently 'serial' killing occurring, on a very literal level. Seldom receives a note, accompanied by a symbol, every time a murder takes place. Seldom fears that the killer is effectively parodying his mathematical work on theories of patterns or series in mathematics. One of Seldom's areas of expertise is Wittgenstein's theories about series and the possibilities for deviation in numerical series.

The solution to the murder seems to revolve around finding out the pattern of these 'series' of shapes that accompanies the series of murders. The first two murders that follow the suffocation of Mrs. Eagleton seem clearly connected -- one at a hospital, another at a concert. But then follows other killings accompanied by symbols that seem deliberate, like a bus driver who crashes his bus to get a transplant for his daughter. Also, despite this apparent link through symbols, Seldom points out that there is always an 'uncertainty principle,' even in mathematics. Seldom points to Gdel's Theorem which much like Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle in science, suggests that despite all appearances, there is always the element of the unpredictable -- for example, the landlady could have died by natural causes. Additionally, the mathematical murder could be unsolvable, although conveniently during the narrative the once 'unsolvable' Fermat's Last Theorem is solved, acting as inspiration to Seldom and his unnamed sidekick.