Terrific fun and really clever! (Katie Fforde)

A masterpiece: never has intelligence been so wickedly dark, on-point and outright funny. It's also full of lightly worn wisdom and the best kind of 'I'd always thought but never managed to think it so clearly' psychological insight. I'm full of awe and admiration (Alain de Botton)

The wild and hysterical adventures of crime solving Nancy and Ursula turned loose on Oxford University. Plum Sykes knows her world, skewers it, and serves it up as murder. Delicious (Delia Ephron, author of SIRACUSA)

A riot and very page turning and written with terrific panache (Barbara Trapido, author of BROTHER OF THE MORE FAMOUS JACK)

Bright and funny, Bergdorf Blondes is haute couture chick lit (Candace Bushnell)

Plum Sykes channels Nancy Mitford and Holly Golightly with great charm and sweetness (Jane Green, author of Mr. Maybe and Jemima J.)

Sykes has a distinctive, wily and well-deployed comic voice . Into the blender go Bridget Jones, Anita Loos, Sex and the City and Clueless; out comes a diabolically amusing concoction (Janet Maslin New York Times)

Perfectly pitched - playful, funny, satirical and sweet. I laughed out loud many times (Anna Wintour Vogue)

Sparkling, bliss, glitteringly honest . I haven't had so much fun since rereading the Mitford novels (Rachel Johnson Spectator)

Highly entertaining and intelligent . whips along at an exhilarating speed (Mail on Sunday)

Savagely funny (Observer)

Brideshead, bon-bons, cucumber sandwiches - and now a murder

Pimm's, punting and ball gowns are de rigeur. Ursula Flowerbutton, a studious country girl, arrives for her first term anticipating nothing more sinister than days spent poring over history books - and, perhaps, an invitation to a ball. But when she discovers a ghastly crime, she is catapulted into a murder investigation.

Determined to unravel the case - and bag her first scoop for the famous student newspaper Cherwell - Ursula enlists the help of her fellow Fresher, the glamorous American Nancy Feingold. While navigating a whirl of black-tie parties and secret dining societies, the girls discover a surfeit of suspects. From broken-hearted boyfriends to snobby Sloanes, lovelorn librarians to dishy dons, none can be presumed innocent.

Clueless meets Agatha Christie in this wickedly funny tale of high society, low morals and a middle-class girl, the first book in Plum Sykes's irresistible new series.