Party Girls Die in Pearls: An Oxford Girl Mystery
By Plum Sykes
There’s a writer’s trick or trope or mode of artist being that they do when they want to explore the nooks and crannies of particular society (real or imagined). They have someone commit a crime and then they create a compelling, but outsider character to investigate the crime. It creates a structure that allows the investigator to visit a variety of characters and situations which gives the author a chance to provide commentary on the society where the crime happened.
No doubt you are definitely thinking, that’s exactly what the Cohen Brothers did with the Big Lebowski and LA during the first Iraq War. Or maybe you’re remembering Zootopia and how that bunny meter maid was our tour guide to the dark underbelly of that imaginary Utopia where all the animals got along until Mr. Otter disappeared. Here’s where I feel compelled to mention The Yiddish Policeman’s Union which is a novel by Michael Chabon which explores an imagined, temporary Jewish homeland in Alaska in an alternative historical timeline where Israel never existed via the police investigation of the murder of a junkie, chess player.
Which brings us to Party Girls Die in Pearls by Plum Sykes which is a mystery set in and around the University of Oxford in the mid 1980s. The title gives away that there’s a death–Lady India, a second year student and the queen of the rich-and-popular set–and our main character Ursula Flowerbutton is charged with investigating it, both because she’s the one who discovered the body and because she’s an aspiring student reporter looking to solidify her place on Oxford’s student newspaper. Ursula–in a contrast to Lady India–is a serious, studious young woman who arrives in Oxford wearing something that reminded another character of “Beatrice Potter” and another said she was from “the part of the English countryside that’s on the chocolate boxes”.
The plot is twisty enough, with Ursula uncovering clues and interviewing possible suspects including Lady India’s boyfriend, her best friend (who was also India’s competition for roles in the theater), a young, dashing professor who had been “close” with India, and a prince of dubious lineage with unrequited feelings for India, as well as a few other folks. Ursula is new to Oxford and there’s much to be learned as she navigates her classes, the parties, the pubs, the freshman girl’s rowing team, the social circle that India occupied, and the rest of Oxford (including difficult to win over librarians and the administrators of her college who view Lady India’s death as an opportunity to hit up her father for a large donation to the college endowment).
Like all good detectives, Ursula has a sidekick, an American exchange student who is introduced as so:
(To save you a google, it’s like a Fedora, but with a fixed brim.)
The girl in the Frank Sinatra hat, green top, and pink pants is Nancy Feingold who is the sartorially more interesting Doctor Watson to Ursula’s Holmes. Nancy is in Oxford to hunt for a “hot, floppy-haired Eton boy” who is due to inherit a title.
There is a third member of the team–Horatio, the gossip columnist for the Oxford student newspaper which means he is very good at explaining the various connections–emotional, physical, and social–between all the suspects as well as keeping Ursula and Nancy company at the best parties in Oxford. If Horatio was a real person, there’s little doubt he’d find himself at the top of one the most shameless British tabloids upon graduation.
Sykes’ novel is a delight: The mystery is a good one that reveals plenty about Oxford in the 1980s (much of which is probably still true today, even if we wished it wasn’t like that.). Sykes’ eyes for building character via clothes and dialogue are a delight. (There’s a great bit of dialogue where one suspect explains his whereabouts by carefully trying to skirt around the fact that he disappeared for the night by visiting a woman’s college to hang around with a young woman whose name it seems isn’t currently available to it.)
Ultimately, this a fun read with a good mystery at it’s center and, as a bonus, some insight into Oxford in the 1980s. (There are delightful footnotes to explain eighties cultural reference points, e.g.: “* Cyndi Lauper, of “Girls Just Want to Have Fun” fame, was to Madonna what Meghan Trainor is to Taylor Swift.”). So go ahead, pour yourself a cup of tea (or a flute of champagne) and read it.
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