When an anonymous letter is delivered to the Clarendon English Dictionary, it is rapidly clear that this is not the usual lexicographical enquiry. Instead, the letter hints at secrets and lies linked to a particular year.

For Martha Thornhill, the new senior editor, the date can mean only one thing: the summer her brilliant older sister Charlie went missing.

After a decade abroad, Martha has returned home to the city whose ancient institutions have long defined her family. Have the ghosts she left behind her been waiting for her return?

When more letters arrive, and Martha and her team pull apart the complex clues within them, the mystery becomes ever more insistent and troubling. It seems Charlie had been keeping a powerful secret, and someone is trying to lead the lexicographers towards the truth. But other forces are no less desperate to keep it well and truly buried.

Susie Dent is a wordsmith of the highest calibre. This story is one that will capture your attention, hold it and take you on many twists and turns. It is clever, has brilliant characters and is for lovers of the written word everywhere. I loved all the chapter headings with word definitions, it’s full of titbits of the lexicographer’s world, fascinating, educational and yet is a fabulous puzzle at its heart!

One of my books of the year by a long way!

Exactly what you'd expect from Susie Dent's first novel! Full of interesting words that you wouldn't commonly find in books, along with definitions of much older and more out-of-use words too. From a linguistics perspective, it was an absolute treat.

The story itself follows a group of lexicographers, working for the Clarendon English Dictionary, as they solve clues from mysterious letters they start receiving about a disappearance that happened 10 years ago. The way the clues within the letters are written and subsequently solved is very clever, but it sometimes felt like it was done so quickly that it could be quite confusing for the average reader without all the knowledge an expertise of a lexicographer. The story is interesting but it feels quite slow paced at times, often taking you off on a tangent to detail the etymology of certain words before getting back on track with the mystery at hand. There are also a few loose ends that are tied up quite quickly and without much explanation towards the end, and it feels like they could have been fleshed out more, considering they're mentioned several times throughout the book so feel quite significant to the plot, only for it to be glossed over.

Overall an enjoyable read.

What a wonderful first novel for Susie Dent.
Guilty By Definition is elegantly written whilst being beautifully descriptive and captivating.

The staff at the Clarendon English Dictionary start receiving anonymous letters relating to the senior editor Martha's missing sister, who disappeared over ten years ago.

It is up to the team of lexicographers to pull apart the letters and solve the mystery of the Martha's sisters disappearance.

I really enjoyed this book and the stories behind each character at the dictionary.
A most read for nice summer evenings.

This is a very clever book, crossword clues, Shakespeare’s sonnets and deciphering word clues in literature. For all that it is a smooth read that bounces along at quite a pace, looking to solve a ten year disappearance. Charlie is the centre of it all, daughter, sister and friend and colleague. Her disappearance is left at peace for a decade and then her sister and the other staff working around the dictionary get clues. It took me a while to get I to the book, the word definitions are very thick and it didn’t come immediately to me to get comfortable with this, once I was in, though I was in! The protagonists aren’t immediately likeable- an odd prickly bunch with bruises, wounds and moods that makes it interesting to see how the author dusts them down to make me care about them.

A very interesting book by Susie Dent. Each chapter began with an old word and its definition.I could definitely appreciate how the book was written by a lexicographer.
Martha and Alex were very strong characters and I didn't work out who actually carried out the two killings until near the very end. An excellent debut book. Thanks to Netgalley for an A.R.C.

Oh my goodness I loved this book!!!

I’m a massive fan of Susie Dent so was excited to read this. Loved the twists and turns of the storyline, the lovable but damaged key players and the focus on language throughout.

A must read!!!

A brilliant story.
Martha works as a lexicographer for the Cambridge English Dictionary and they receive postcards with cryptic messages on them and they try and find out the clues written in Shakespearian script and all are trying to find out what happened to Martha`s sister Charlie when she disappeared ten years ago.
I`m not good with long words and thought it would be difficult to read but it just flowed very easily and was a pleasure to find out all the meanings to lots of the words. though I did know who the bad one was early on.
A great book to read would definitely recommend.
Thanks to the publisher the Author and Netgalley for the ARC and I give my honest review

From the first sentence I knew i was going to enjoy this book. If Susie Dent can't write a book then hope is lost! This review will not be as eloquent as the book but here goes. I thoroughly enjoyed this from the outset, the words flowed and I struggled to put it down. The characters were real and I loved the setting of CED in Oxford. A mystery to solve with clues; none of which i got! What I did get was the pleasure of learning about words and where they came from and the joy in them combined with a missing person and possible missing treasure mystery. There is a myriad of emotions bubbling away within the characters and between them and I was kept entertained by their interactions. A small cast of characters that I can see easily being portrayed on the screen. I loved Alex's' secret that she divulged to the others and her calmness. Zoe's enthusiasm for digging information, Simon's knowledge to crack the clues and Martha trying to find what happened to her sister after all these years and facing up to her foibles. A wondrous delight, I am already looking forward to the next book. Thank you Netgalley.

Being a former historical linguist myself, I've spend a lot of time around lexicographers, and I would first of all like to confirm that yes, this really is what they are all like, and yes, it is incredibly fun to hang out with them (but also disconcerting since they all seem to possess superhuman memory).

Therefore, I was predisposed to enjoy this book, and on the whole it didn't let me down. Susie Dent's prose is pleasant and confident, and I think she does a good job not alienating people with too much academic detail while also not patronising her readers. Her descriptions of modern and increasingly more diverse Oxford were refreshing - I'm sure images of old-fashioned, stuffy academia come to mind when you hear a book is set in <i>Oxford</i> (I definitely went in with certain expectations and some apprehension...), and it's cool to encounter a more well-rounded description of a city you're used to seeing only in a certain light.

I went in expecting a mostly fun, cosy mystery, and while there is plenty of that, the narrative also has a surprising emotional weight to it that added a lot of depth to the characters. It very honestly explores the frustrated ambitions a lot of people with an academic background have to learn to be content with (hi, hello, it's me) as well as the complex web of family relationships after having to adjust to big changes (be it a tragic disappearance, a divorce, or simply moving far away). These two aspects of the story - a fun but unrealistic mystery romp and complex, three dimensional characters - sometimes butted heads, and the tone suffers somewhat when these people have to react to the outcomes of the mystery they've been trying to solve. The last few pages manage to strike a good, emotionally honest balance though, and overall the story ends in a satisfying way.

This is the debut novel by Susie Dent best known for her role in Dictionary Corner on Countdown. I did enjoy the book though found it slow going at times. On the plus side I liked the obscure words that started each chapter. Some of which I intend to insert into conversation at every available opportunity. I'm afraid the cryptic clues got the better of me. A promising debut and I look forward to reading more from Susie.

Firstly, thanks so much to Netgalley for the free ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This was so much fun! Unsurprisingly sparkling with obvious intelligence and wit, with a group of interesting characters and a compelling central story. As an avid murder mystery fan I have to admit I saw through the plot fairly early on, but, as per usual, this didn't affect my enjoyment. I'm a sucker for the 'traditional murder mystery' over crime fiction, and this delivered in spades along with evocative writing and a charming presentation of Oxford.

A debut murder mystery that takes place in a publishing house. It's written by a fantastic writter who has put some amazing clues and twists in it.

It is a very gripping read right from the first line.
Thank you to Net Galley for an advanced copy

There's a new kid on the crime fiction block, and her name is Susie Dent. As a lexicographer and etymologist, Susie knows all about words, their meanings and origins.
Guilty by Definition is Susie's debut novel, and what a debut it is.
The story is set in Oxford and centres around a team of lexicographers at the Clarendon English Dictionary, who receive some rather cryptic, anonymous letters. The letters contain clues pertaining to the disappearance of a young woman in 2010, whose sister happens to be one of said lexicographers.
That's as much of the plot as I'm willing to give away. Suffice to say this is an immensely enjoyable book. Each chapter begins with an antiquated word and its definition.
The plot is complex and intricately woven, it's twisty and has the obligatory red herring.
There are multiple POV's, but they are necessary and, in my humble opinion, aren't confusing.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I really hope there will more like this to follow.
Thanks to Netgalley and Bonnier Books UK for the digital ARC.

This was slightly different to my usual go to books but it turned out to be one of my favourite books I’ve read recently. Different twists were constantly revealed and from the get go I thoroughly enjoyed reading it and didn’t want to put it down. I think the author adapted a perfect pace that kept me invested throughout and also built up a lot of suspense and mystery around the plot that constantly left me wanting to read on.

Something that really stood out for me was how each chapter began with a definition of a word matched with the time period it derived from. I really enjoyed this concept and I think it added a lot of depth to the book, contributing towards it being a really interesting read.

I was excited to read this based on the description and the reviews but was also skeptical due to it being something slightly different for me, however it definitely exceeded my expectations. A very well written intelligent mystery and I would highly recommend it, definite 5* read in my opinion!

This was a brilliantly clever book, that taught me all manner of things, as well as entertaining me as a great thriller.

Martha Thornhill is a senior editor for the Clarendon English Dictionary in Oxford. She has ghosts in her past, the main one is that of her brilliant and beautiful older sister, Charlie, who vanished over a decade before. But when a letter arrives at the office, claiming to know her sister, all wrapped up in clever language and riddles, she feels the pain over her sister vanishing all over again. But as the riddles continue to come, Martha begins to find out that her sister had secrets, and those secrets are about to come to life.

This was a great book, I loved it from the word go. A must-read for thriller fans!

I honest really enjoyed reading Susie’s debut fiction book.
It was inherently readable, erudite and engaging. All the stars..
I loved Martha, and Alex as characters too. They felt so real and relatable.

Unfortunately I gave up on this. I really loved the hook - mysterious letters with riddles that need to be solved in order to work out what happened to a missing sister - but the language was over the top. It felt like the author had chosen a complicated word over a simple one at every opportunity and that completely distracted from the story. I really hope that if you keep reading there's a fabulous mystery story, but I'm afraid the pacing was too slow and completely put me off continuing.

“Guilty By Definition” is not so much a whodunnit as a whodunwhat: a handful of erudite Dictionary editors in Oxford are lured into becoming amateur detectives by a series of letters and postcards inscribed with tantalising hints about the disappearance of one of their colleagues a decade earlier. It’s the sort of contrived and cozily convoluted crossword puzzle of a plot one might find on Morse or Midsomer Murders, but beyond that it’s a lyrical love letter to linguistics, and a thoughtful exploration of the frailties of the human heart.

It didn’t occur to me to wonder whether this might be another ghost-written celeb vanity project when I first requested an ARC, but the possibility did cross my mind a trifle belatedly thereafter. Surely it is not, though: this is undeniably the work of a logophile whose taste for literary allusions and sesquepedilianism is ameliorated by their gentle enthusiasm for sharing the definitions of their more esoteric word choices, and by the clarity of their prose. If this isn’t the work of Susie Dent’s own hands - well, that would certainly be an irony worthy of inclusion in the story itself. But I think it surely is. This book is the product of a magpie mind darting after bright gewgaws of nomenclature and glittering oddments of information, lining her story with gleaming etymological treasures like little gifts for the reader, urging us to share her own delight in the endless inventiveness of language.

It’s a story full of cryptic clues to solve, as well as plot threads to untangle; the real pleasure of the book, though, lies at least as much in getting to know the characters as it does in uncovering the secrets of the past - and the city of Oxford feels almost like a character in its own right, brought to vivid life with fondly observed minutiae. (Come to that, The Dictionary and The English Language feel almost like characters.)

I dislike reviews that spoil the plot, but I should probably sketch out an outline at least: Martha has recently returned from Germany to accept a job editing the Clarendon English Dictionary. Ten years earlier her older sister Charlie went missing, and out of the blue someone begins to send a series of opaque clues about Charlie’s disappearance to Martha and to her colleagues, reigniting the case and setting off a chain of events that will eventually lead us to learning what really happened all those years ago.

“Guilty By Definition” is a satisfyingly plotted mystery, and a book crammed with glittering tidbits of information and beautiful turns of phrase. Thoroughly enjoyable.

What a great fictional debut from Susie Dent! As expected a lot of unusual words in there but always explained and never distracted from the story, which was a great unraveling of a decade old mystery. Would highly recommend!

Absolutely loved it. Very intelligent. Adored all the words. Loved the Shakespeare references ( felt smug as I got them) Learnt a lot of new words too. More importantly, it's a cracking yarn. Full of clues, intrigue, twists and beautiful descriptions of Oxford. I loved Martha and found her highly relatable.
An absolute gem