Written in Red: An Oxford Dogwalkers’ Mystery

In Dalton’s busy second mystery set in Oxford, England (after 2015’s The White Shepherd), the beating death of elderly historian James Lowell in his college rooms shocks Oxford University administrator Anna Hopkins. Anna later learns from Isadora Salzman, a friend and fellow dog-walker, that she and James were recruited back in the 1960s as part of the so-called Oxford Six, who did low-level espionage chores. Their handler was the charismatic and malevolent Tallis, who ordered them never to speak of their activities—and who once rescued James from an unspecified difficulty. One of the six died by violence 50 years earlier; now James’s murder forces Isadora to tell her story. Meanwhile, Anna is in the early stages of a relationship with an American soldier and getting reacquainted with an old friend who has blockbuster news of his own. Dog lovers will enjoy the canine interludes, but the introduction of a new and critical character at the end is unfair to readers who like to guess whodunit. (June)