Guilty by Definition by Susie Dent
Published by Sourcebooks
Publication date: September 30, 2025
Genres: Fiction, Mystery
Bookshop
A love of words, academia, and mystery are all that’s needed to fall in love with Susie Dent’s novel, Guilty by Definition. Editors of the Clarendon English Dictionary start receiving cryptic letters hinting at a mystery and the recovery of a possible item of great significance. The letters indicate the timeline coincides with the disappearance of one of the dictionary’s interns, giving them an even more ominous weight.
Martha Thornhill is the Clarendon’s new senior editor. Her sister Charlie, a brilliant but mercurial PhD student, worked there ten years ago, the summer she disappeared. Her loss shattered her parents and left Martha haunted. Now, everyone at the dictionary as well as others from Charlie’s personal life are receiving postcards with vague sentiments and admonitions while the staff receives letters at the office. These are poetic, but also complex puzzles where everything is a clue, whether it’s the words, their groupings, or even the letter’s structure.
Modeled on the Oxford English Dictionary, the Clarendon is the preeminent source for anything relating to words in the English language. All of the main characters work as lexicographers at the dictionary, so the novel is filled with definitions, word trivia, and facts about the origins of many modern words. That Guilty by Definition is also set in Oxford means that much revolves around Shakespeare—his use of language and his acknowledgment as the creator of many words we still use today. This might sound a bit dry for anyone who isn’t a word freak, but Dent integrates it all into an engrossing story.
Dent is herself a lexicographer and so gets a bit caught up in using unusual words, but it comes off as exuberant rather than pedantic. She’s passionate about the subject and I enjoyed the education from such carefully considered writing. It’s not enough to undermine what ends up being a very twisted tale l with a deeply satisfying and unexpected resolution. This is fun reading, a perfect escape, and a great way to embrace the back-to-school feeling that fall brings.
Want more reading I loved about all things word-related? Try The Grammarians by Cathleen Schine.
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*I received a free copy of this book from Sourcebooks in exchange for an honest review.*
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