I had really high hopes when starting on this book but sadly it didnt live up to expectations. Unsurprisingly, considering who the author is, the story is set in a dictionary office and relies heavily on words and their meaning. At times the flow of the story is broken as the author sidetracks into explaining the history of a word, and rather too many obscure words find their way into the text too. The clues the team receive which are supposed to help them discover what happened when a girl went missing years ago are very heavy and literary, yet they solve them so easily, leaving me as am ordinary reader utterly baffled. A plodding storyline, saved in part by the speeding up of red herrings and revelations in the final few chapters. Sadly, a below average whodunit which tries too hard to be clever.

Loved this book and if you, like me, are a fan of Countdown, words, and Susie Dent then you will definitely love this book too.

As well as a brilliant mystery, you'll also learn a lot more about words that you didn't know before

I did enjoy this book, the setting in Oxford was lovely, the characters were interesting and I love a mystery especially one involving cryptic clues and letters. I felt like the clues left for the staff seemed to be getting solved a bit too easily/quickly but I also wouldn't have wanted it to be dragged out between three pages so I enjoyed it nonetheless. The story was very unique and interesting and I was gripped throughout.

A truly excellent book, a mystery but with the added extras of wonderful language, mind-boggling puzzles and in-depth characterisation. This isn't a book where language and obscure definitions are the sole focus, they're the icing on the cake of a challenging whodunit with an excellent cast of characters who really come to life on the page. I found it a slow start as I needed to adjust to the many unfamiliar words and their explanations but then I found that this added to my enjoyment, I just wish that my memory was better and that I could actually use these wonderful words myself in daily conversation. How impressive that would be! A fabulous read and highly recommended.

Personally I think susie dent needs to stick to doing her day job! I really could not get into this book, to many dictionary quotes and definitions for me to enjoy it.

I know it says ‘guilty by definition’ but this book is full of definitions, too full, and I can never remember what each means. The characters are various educated middle-class and conversations are not always real. There is a lot of over describing with unnecessarily abundant adjectives. The author could do with copying Hemingway or Steinbeck…a sparer style.

I skipped chunks of the story but got the gist. I read the ending, which was ok but a bit Dan Brown.

Not for me, disappointingly.

I read a copy provided by NetGalley and the publishers.

OMG I loved this book and I could not put it down.. Its a wordy mystery (but do we expect anything less from Susie Dent!) but it is still solid mystery that it is easy to follow and easy to get into.

Martha works for the Clarendon English Dictionary (obvs) and they start to receive odd letters, which rake up the mysterious disappearance of Martha's sister over a decade previously.. and Martha and her team decide to investigate.

Martha isn't a easy character to like as she is more insular character, keeping her thoughts and feelings to herself and I liked that about her.

I really hope that this becomes a series of books as I want more of the Clarendon English Dictionary team!!!

Guilty By Definition is a gentle thriller set in and around Oxford. With plenty of wordplay (as you might expect) and some clever plotting, it's relatively slow paced yet intriguing.

The novel revolves around mysterious letters received hinting about the disappearance of the sister of editor Martha Thornhill. She and her colleagues attempt to solve the literary clues in a sort of sub Dan Brown quest, not sure where it will lead them. The characters are well drawn and the language lessons are plentiful.

Overall, Guilty By Association is a very different novel that keeps the reader's attention well. The writing is sharp and there are plenty of obscure words to learn along the way to the eventual resolution.

I really enjoyed this book, a treasure trove of marvellous new and old words, all coupled with a detective story to solve. Perfect for bibliophiles and logophiles alike.

I think susie Dent is fascinating, I love hearing about old words and meanings so felt very lucky to read her first book.
The premise was brilliant, I loved the treasure hunt theme and the central female characters , my only criticism bizarrely is the overuse of words, old , new and rather overdone and explained.

This was SUCH a fun concept!

I found the beginning slightly slow, maybe with the large cast of characters. But at around 1/3 of the way through I was hooked.

I really enjoyed this, and was surprised by the twist. A good fiction debut from my favourite lexicographer

As soon as I saw who this book was written by I knew I had to read it. When I’ve watched countdown I find her knowledge of words brilliant and fascinating so I knew this book would be filled with interesting words and a story with a difference.

The plot itself was great, I really enjoyed the mystery and the puzzles, even if I couldn’t make head nor tail of the Shakespearean quotes it still made for fantastic reading. I did figure out the perpetrators possibly about half way through and I also guessed who chorus was pretty early on too but it didn’t take away from the overall feel of the book which I thoroughly enjoyed. I have to say that I absolutely loved the words and meanings at the beginning of the chapters, all of which I’ve already forgotten but it was still brilliant to see.

Highly recommend to those who love a puzzle and a mystery.

An engaging story with hints of Agatha Christie ibut set in present day. The writing is descriptive and flows beautifully but then that is to be expected from the talented Ms Dent. I’m already looking forward to reading her next book.

A book by a lexicographer, heaven sent for a bibliophile, a philobiblist’s dream.
This tells of Martha’s quest to find her missing sister Charlie who disappeared several years ago. Martha after spending time abroad now works at the Clarendon English Dictionary, where she and colleagues labour to solve the clues they have been sent by the mysterious sender. All are literary or word related so pool their skills to work things out. Each chapter begins with a dictionary definition apt for the chapter, cleverly done.

I’m sometimes a little sceptical when reading books by a celebrity but was very much drawn to this one, Suzie being such a master of words on TV, and I was not disappointed- in fact completely the opposite. It's stunningly written and very cleverly thought out. As explained in the text words define civilisation, one cannot exist without the other and to know one is to learn of the other and this does this so beautifully. There are unusual words (and definitions) woven into the text along with everyday words we may not know the origin of. Things such as secretary and orientation, which I found very interesting and learnt things along the way. A read for the enquiring mind. A stunning, very different, eloquent mystery. Brilliant.


For more reviews please follow me on Twitter (X) @nickisbookblog
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It seems to me that celebrity crime fiction fall into 3 basic categories:
- Ghost written where sometimes the ‘author’ may actually have read at least some of the manuscript.
- A celeb with some experience in writing (often comedians/ actors/ script writers / presenters/ ex-journalists etc) where the story has nothing to do with their ‘known persona’
- A celeb who bases their novel on something to do with the thing they became famous for (e.g. chefs/ politicians/ celeb legal folk)

These broad categories are in no way mutually exclusive so don’t assume just because someone CAN write, they DID write their book.
I don’t think there’s much doubt that in this case Susie Dent wrote the book – based in a fictionalised work environment of the lexicographical department she began her career (even down to the water feature in the quadrangle those of us who worked there remember well) it reads in a manner very much of her nonfiction work and even social media posts.

Martha Thornhill, new senior editor at the Clarendon English Dictionary (in Oxford and in NO way connected to Oxford English Dictionary… :) ) receives a mysterious letter at work that stands out from the usual dictionary based enquiry. A letter that hints at something related to the year her older sister went missing. It’s not just Martha that’s receiving the letters though: her team of fellow editors are getting them and they’re going to have to pool their language/ literary knowledge to have any hope of solving the mystery.

What follows is an etymological detective novel that readers of the author’s non-fiction work will no doubt enjoy but regular crime fiction readers may find a little heavy on the show not tell: the characters in here are clever. All of them. Not just the dictionary editors, but everyone in their sphere. Oxford may be a city of ‘town and gown’ but here everyone seems to be gown . Being lexicographers, they love their quirky and unusual words – and are happy to go into their own full definition of something they say or think (“Aspectabund, she thought: wearing your emotions on your face”), or giving lengthy explanations of something all the characters understand but the reader won’t – so we get a page long explanation of clues everyone in the room gets’. It might be necessary, but it does lead to feeling a bit like reading a dictionary itself at times.

The author heads each chapter with a word that hints at the events to come (For example: 3 eidolon, noun (seventeenth century): an insubstantial manifestation of a person or thing; a spirit, a phantom; an aspiration).

Crime novels with an academic bent in Oxford are of course nothing new and walking in the shadow of Morse or more recent fair like Magpie Lane are tough acts to follow. This felt more like the recent series started by another celeb using their own experience – Rev Richard Coles and to that end, I think readers who enjoyed that series will enjoy this book.
Will it be the first in a series? Maybe: if we’re not overrun by biblioklepts. I don’t want to seem an agelast in my review or offer malobservations so will avoid forplaint and hope this review isn’t overly mordacious.

What an absolute joy!

I'll admit, words have always been a favourite thing of mine so all the new, seldom used and oft unknown ones in this Oxford based mystery were an extra bonus.

The basic bones of the story - Years ago Martha's sister disappeared and now someone is sending mysterious riddle and word play based puzzles to her and her colleagues at the Clarendon English Dictionary suggesting they know what happened. . .

To be fair it took me a couple of chapters to get into the flow of the story (hence the 4 stars instead of 5) but once I hit the groove it just flew by. It may not be to everyone's taste as it gets quite wordy in places but as Dent is the lexicographer's lexicographer that's only to be expected really.

“Lexicographers sought out the thrill of the chase as much as detectives did.”

Ten years ago, Martha Thornhill’s sister Charlie disappeared, and Martha fled Oxford for Berlin. Now Martha has returned to Oxford where she is the senior editor of the Clarendon English Dictionary. When she and her staff start receiving cryptic postcards and letters, it soon becomes clear that the clues refer to the summer Charlie disappeared. As Martha and her team unravel the linguistic riddles they realise that while Chorus, the mysterious sender of the letters and cards, wants them to solve the mystery of Charlie’s disappearance there are other forces who will do anything to keep the secrets buried.

This book was a delight from start to finish and will almost certainly end up in my top ten for 2024. The mystery is intriguing, clever, and meticulously plotted. The characters are vivid, interesting, multi-faceted, and real. And the writing is smooth and easy flowing, pulling the reader deep into the story. The clues contained in the mail the editorial team received are all somehow related to words, reading, and writing, and invite the reader of the book to puzzle along with the characters.

It made a nice change to have a police officer, Oliver Caldwell, who does take the case seriously; more seriously in fact than Martha is initially prepared to do and it is her sister who has disappeared without a trace. But this is as much a story about Martha reluctantly coming to terms with Charlie’s role in her life and her feeling that’s she has always played second fiddle to her sister as a tale about Charlie’s unsolved disappearance.

This book is an absolute delight for anyone who enjoys words, puzzles, and a captivating mystery. Susie Dent manages to insert (obscure) words and their meaning into the mystery seamlessly and without interrupting the flow or taking the reader out of the story. In other words:

“It was excellent: scholarly and precise without overloading the reader with jargon.”

And the words that are explained both in the chapter headings and in the story itself are all appropriate to what is happening on the page.

“But she loved words as individuals. She knew their roots, their rhythms, their skeletons, shapes and stories. Fitting them together to create something meaningful took a different skill altogether.”

This book is proof that Susie Dent doesn’t share this word-related problem with her main character. Unlike Martha, she has very successfully put words together to create something not only meaningful but also smoothly flowing and captivating.

Long review short: Guilty by Definition is a fascinating, original, and well-plotted mystery as well as an ode to words. I can only hope there will be more word-related mysteries by this author in the not-too-distant future.

This is one of the best books I have read recently. The story is set in Oxford in the offices of the fictional Clarendon English Dictionary.
The main character is Martha, who has returned from working in Berlin to work at the dictionary but is still very much affected by the disappearance of her older sister some years previously. We also get the points of view of other staff at the dictionary, all very well drawn, and their relationships feel like a family.
Because the author is Susie Dent, of Dictionary Corner fame, we get much erudition regarding the unusual words that the CED team research and also a good many Shakespeare quotes. The author wears her scholarship lightly, however, and never makes the reader feel uncomfortably ignorant.
The city of Oxford almost becomes a character in itself with beautiful descriptive passages peppered throughout the novel. The mystery is well developed, with several excellent twists and it comes to a very satisfying conclusion.
I really hope Susie Dent writes a sequel as I feel this is an excellent book with a clever mystery that is not in the least cosy, although there are some great cats. There have been several series set in Oxford, why not one more? I, for one, would welcome it. This book would be enjoyed by fans of Deborah Harkness, the equally erudite author of ‘The Discovery of Witches’ series, in which the Bodleian Library also features. But in truth, anyone who enjoys words and their origins, or even merely clever mysteries will be charmed by this delightful novel.
Thanks to #NetGalley for a copy in exchange for an honest review.

As a fan of countdown I had to read this book (thanks Netgalley) it’s a good tale with great use of words and their definitions so you get to be entertained and educated simultaneously

A mystery in Oxford. Martha's sister Charlie was murdered a few years ago, but no-one could understand why. Since then, a weird letter has arrived each year around the anniversary of her disappearance. Martha and her friends, who mostly work for the Clarendon English Dictionary as lexicographers, decide to try and solve the cryptic messages in the letters and messages which continue to arrive.. An unusual story peppered with Susie Dent's trademark etymology and lots of clues and puzzles.