Jumping the cracks - Victoria Blake

Oxford: the city of dreaming spires and lofty knowledge. Or so they say. But for private investigator Sam Falconer, it seems to be a place of sin and secrets. And Sam's better placed than most to know - she grew up in an Oxford college and now she's back to set up a branch of her detective agency.

And as ever, cases have a way of finding Sam. Soon she has a vanished man to find, a museum display of shrunken heads to protect, and - as a near-fatal chase proves -her own skin to save. For Sam, like the Oxford antiquities she's tracking, it seems the secrets of the past aren't easily escaped.
A taut mix of classic crime, modern noir and psychological drama, this is Blake at her very best.