Guilty by Defintion

Susie Dent is well known as the language expert on Countdown in Britain. Letters and Numbers was the Australian version of the show. Susie Dent also appears in Eight Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown which can be seen on Australian television. She has written a number of books about words in the English language.

Guilty by Definition is Susie Dent's first novel and, not surprisingly, the meaning of words feature strongly in this crime novel. After ten years in Germany, Martha Thornhill has returned to Oxford to work as senior editor of the Clarendon English Dictionary. One morning, Martha and her team receive a letter written in code which they eventually work out refers to the disappearance of Martha's sister, Charlie, in 2010. The letter is followed by other letters and a series of postcards referring to past events in the lives of the recipients. Martha, Alex, Safi and Simon unravel the clues concealed in the messages and investigate leads that may reveal what happened to Charlie.

The reader also becomes involved in attempting to decode the messages and is introduced to a variety of words they may not have previously encountered. I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book.