2.5 Stars

Very lightweight, borderline Young Adult novel. The characters of Ursula and Nancy could be developed further into a “detective duo” but hopefully not with the painful and vacuous Oxford students that featured throughout the novel. With the exception of Horatio very few of them had any redeeming qualities at all.

Also there was an often excessive use of footnotes to explain the idioms and fashions of the time. Some of these footnotes were quite entertaining and given Nancy’s unfamiliarity with all things English I thought they would have been better served being incorporated into the dialogue.
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This is a nice little whodunnit set in the 1980s Oxford which, unfortunately, is smothered by too many descriptions of the fashion of that era. Going by the author's biography, the fashion references were bound to be there; but their volume didn't sit well with me.
Otherwise, the descriptions of the life in Oxford, the thoughts and priorities of the students, the colourful characters, and the murder mystery itself made for a decent reading. ( )

My family recently went on our summer vacation where I was thrilled to make a small dent in my ever growing TBR by reading nine books, all of which were fun reads (exciting in and of itself because I tend to be a picky reader). The two clear standouts were Party Girls Die in Pearls and Eden by Jeanne Blasberg, two very different but equally fabulous reads. In Party Girl Dies in Pearls, Plum Sykes crafts a clever tale filled with memorable and mostly likeable characters set at Oxford University in the mid-1980’s. Sykes’ sly, witty, and occasionally tongue-in-cheek method of telling Ursula’s adventure makes Party Girl Die in Pearls a highly entertaining tale that kept me laughing and marveling at Sykes’ incredible storytelling skills. The mystery was well-done and realistic, and the resolution of the crime was highly satisfying and thankfully not easy to puzzle out. The many twists and turns added both suspense and at times humor to her story.

Having experienced the 80’s in my teens, I thoroughly enjoyed the many 80’s references including Gloria Vanderbilt jeans, tube tops and huge hairstyles. Sykes also employed footnotes to explain or comment on certain references; these footnotes added greatly to the ingeniousness of the book. I highly recommend Party Girls Die in Pearls and cannot wait for the next Oxford Girl Mystery. ( )