If this is Detective Garibaldi’s first appearance, we can only hope it is not his last. A group of six alumni from Balfour College, Oxford, now nearing forty years of age, have sort of kept in touch. Every year one, Melissa, a noted newsreader with an equally successful husband, holds a quiz night in aid of charity in the Ocean Bar. This is held on the evening of the boat race which is said to be ‘more about the Day than the Race’. On this occasion, they are all there, some with partners who were not at Oxford, and things go wrong when there is an unexpected final round listing a scandal about each of the six and asking which statements are true. Who planned that? Then one of them, Nick Bellamy is found dead, poisoned but with his tongue cut out and a college scarf stuffed into his mouth. Garibaldi is an attractively conceived character with a habit of quoting aptly from classical literature to describe what he is seeing. There is always the assumption that the murderer is one of the group but it is hard to guess which it might be. The story moves to an unexpected ending. This book has all the tension, mystery and pace that is needed to keep readers’ attention. It is very well written. I recommend it.

Old university pals meet for a quiz night every year but after this one, one member is murdered. Who did it and why? Can Garibaldi find out the truth? Well written book with interesting characters. Easy to read and enjoy. I highly recommend.

My thanks to NetGalley and publisher Muswell Press for the ARC. Set in and around Barnes in London. Six friends from Balfour College, Oxford receive invitations to Melissa's 25th anniversary Quiz night and, the couples immediately start comparing husbands, wives and children through various injustices in their lives since their college days and discussing whether they would go to the quiz. Nick Bellamy didn't have a partner but joined his college friends on one table that night. As the quiz comes to a close a voice from the speakers announces The Final Round - Melissa and husband Greg have no idea what's going on. The final round is for the audience to guess which were true of certain facts: reprehensible claims of wrong-doing were levelled at each of the college friends. Melissa and Greg try to cover up the nature of the accusations by trying to turn it into a joke. In the following days the couples are on the phone to each other as they try to work out what's going on. Then, a week later, the day after the boat race on the Thames, Nick's body is found on a secluded path near the lake. The telephone lines are red-hot again amongst the couples as DI Jim Garibaldi starts the murder investigation. If the friends go to the police then they will have to give away certain secrets of their own. This is a complex plot which incorporates several sub-plots which gradually come together with some surprising twists, although overall I found the pace of the book to be rather slow and the characters to be very shallow. A good enough read.

Introducing DI Garibaldi, who has to put up with the occasional biscuit joke, and his docile sidekick DS Milly Gardner, this novel is set in affluent, leafy SW London. Yet another policeman in the overcrowded crime genre, the author has tried hard to give Garibaldi some distinguishing features. He doesn’t drive and is known to reference English Literature texts, most often those found on A level specifications. There is the making of a memorable character here but O’Keefe will need to flesh out this skeleton carefully in any follow-up if the reader is to give him further attention. The story begins in April on Boat Race day at the end of which a grisly murder is committed in Barnes. Nick Bellamy, a one-time successful City banker, is found poisoned, stabbed and mutilated. Nick’s acerbic tongue has literally been cut out. Who has done this and why? In order to begin to piece together the clues, Garibaldi has to look back to early March and a 25th anniversary quiz night at the Ocean Bar, attended by Bellamy and four other Balfour College, Oxford alumni who gather once a year to quiz for charity. From the most materially successful, Melissa and Greg Matthews, to the least affluent, Kim, wife of journalist Chris Turner, none is likeable and they all have toxic relationships or family difficulties. Given that all are accused of either moral or actual crimes in the final round of the quiz, could any of them be connected with Nick’s murder a month later? There is no doubt that O’Keefe can tell a story. He writes well and includes enough domestic detail for the reader to be able to picture the ghastly suspects as they go about their days. However, neither elements of the detective work nor the actual matter of the murder is entirely convincing. Without including spoilers, it’s difficult to say more. Perhaps Fay Wetherby, one of the Balfour group and Head of a prestigious girls’ school, would write at this end of this manuscript: Shows promise; aspects of plot and characterisation need further consideration! My thanks to NetGalley and Muswell Press for a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

I started off thinking this would be a fantastic book. The story was intriguing and original and I was dying to know who the culprit was. After a while though, the characters began to get on my nerves. Five Oxford graduates, wealthy apart from one, pretending to be friends for 25 years when actually they all disliked each other intensely. Just the type of person I can’t stand! They attend an annual charity quiz and one of them is murdered shortly afterwards. DI Garibaldi is the hero who tracks down the killer eventually. I started to lose interest when the police procedures got too unbelievable, and that’s the main reason for my rating. Oh, and when a funeral was referred to as ‘this morning’s funeral’ and ‘the funeral yesterday’ on the same day and page. Careless mistake by the author, and not really important – but little things like that put me off! I enjoyed the writing style but towards the end it seemed rambling, as if the dialogues had been padded out unnecessarily to make the book longer. I did ‘quite’ enjoy it, and it’s a three and a half stars from me.