May Day 1931, and Miss Clara Vale is looking forward to a family wedding in the Cotswolds followed by her college Gaudy – a 10 year reunion – in Oxford as the perfect break from her life as a detective. So, of course, she and her mother promptly stumble across the body of a young research student at the ancient Rollright Stones, showing all the signs of being ritually sacrificed to the Celtic goddess Cuda.

Together with her assistant Bella, in town for a romantic weekend with her partner (who happens to be a Nazi, much to Clara’s concern) and WPC Rosie Winter, the begin to uncover a complex tangle of rivalries, artefact theft and ancient beliefs. Can Clara find the divide between mythology and reality before the May Day “celebrations” claim more victims?

So, this is the sixth Clara Vale book. I’m coming in at Book Six, because when I met Fiona at Death In The Dales, the bookstore didn’t have the first one, and Fiona let slip this one, out today, was imminent, so I thought a timely review was in order – the fact that Fiona readily agreed to do the Five Books section for me helped as well.

So, first of all, let me point something out to you, dear reader. Take a look at the cover. It was almost enough to put me off. It screams that this book is one of those “bright young things investigates a crime while looking fabulous and tossing off witty epithets” mysteries, which generally aren’t my cup of tea at all. But to label this as cosy – as the publishers do – is stretching that definition quite a lot. You did read that bit about ritualistic sacrifice, didn’t you? And I don’t recall many cosy mysteries that discuss whether the victim had intercourse before death…

There really is a lot to like here, and I think I’d have liked it even more if I’d read Fiona’s earlier books, both in this series and in the Poppy Denby series – I’ve just read The Jazz Files aka A Front- Page Murder – and while Fiona does recap what has gone before in the previous books (without spoilers), I think I’d have preferred to discover it at a slower pace, and got to know the characters a bit more. Oh, and this is also a sequel to the Oxford-set Murder Of An Oxford Scientist from the Denby series, with a number of reappearing characters from that one turning up here. Again, it’s nothing that I feel that I needed to know that I didn’t.

There’s a fair bit going on with the mystery, with a whole bundle of red herrings flying (swimming?) around, and I have to say that the killer did catch me out. There’s a bundle of history in the plot, too, mostly here concerned with the rise of the fascists in Britain, with that charmer Oswald Mosely and the Mitford sisters showing up. What it interesting is that there isn’t a whiff of post-war hindsight. Clara can clearly see that Mosely is bad news, but there’s no sense of “hope I’m not in Europe in eight years’ time” sort of thing.

The central characters, especially Clara and Bella, are compelling and the plot weaves all over the place before coming together with a satisfying conclusion. I think I said the same thing when I read The Jazz Files – I’d certainly be up for reading more about these characters. This time, though, I’ll certainly make sure that I do.

The Oxford Murders is out today in ebook and paperback. Many thanks to Embla Books for the review e-copy.