A Mathematical Mystery
5 total works
Something doesn't add up about Archie and Pye...
After a disastrous day at work, disillusioned junior PR executive Tom Winscombe finds himself sharing a train carriage and a dodgy Merlot with George Burgess, biographer of the Vavasor twins, mathematicians Archimedes and Pythagoras, who both died in curious circumstances a decade ago.
Burgess himself will die tonight in an equally odd manner, leaving Tom with a locked case and a lot of unanswered questions.
Join Tom and a cast of disreputable and downright dangerous characters in this witty thriller set in a murky world of murder, mystery and complex equations, involving internet conspiracy theorists, hedge fund managers, the Belarusian mafia and a cat called µ.
A witty, fast-paced thriller with a dash of mathematics and a large dose of danger
Life is not going smoothly for Tom Winscombe. His girlfriend Dorothy has vanished, taking with her all the equipment and money of the company she ran with her friend Ali. Now Tom and Ali are forced to eke out an awkward shared bedsit existence while they try to work out what she is up to.
Meanwhile, Tom has other things on his mind, including how to untangle his father from a cryptocurrency scam, how to break into a hospital in order to interrogate an old acquaintance and what is the significance of the messages he’s been receiving from Rufus Fairbanks’s LinkedIn account.
Tom and Ali’s investigations lead them in a host of unexpected and frankly dangerous directions, involving a pet python, an offshore stag do and an improbable application of the Fibonacci sequence. But at the end of it all, will they find Dorothy – and will she ever be able to explain just exactly what is going on?
Praise for Jonathan Pinnock:‘Lovely stuff.’ Ian Rankin
'A series of humorous, riotous mathematical mysteries.' David Nicholls
‘He makes funny and self-deprecating company.’ The Herald
‘Jonathan Pinnock writes compelling tales with a deliciously wicked glint in his eye.’ Ian Skillicorn, National Short Story Week
‘Jonathan Pinnock is Roald Dahl’s natural successor.’ Vanessa Gebbie
‘Funny, clever, and sometimes brilliantly daft. A comedy that I am sure would have made Pythagoras, Archimedes and Douglas Adams all laugh out loud.’ Scott Pack on The Truth About Archie and Pye
A mystery lands – literally – at Tom Winscombe’s feet, and another riotous mathematical adventure begins…
Tom Winscombe and Dorothy Chan haven’t managed to go on a date for some time, so it’s a shame that their outing to a Promenade Concert is cut short when a mysterious cowled figure plummets from the gallery to the floor of the arena close to where they are standing. But when they find out who he was, all thoughts of romance fly out of the window.
Just who are the Fractal Monks, and what does Isaac, last of the Vavasors and custodian of the papers of famed dead mathematical geniuses Archie and Pye, want with them? How will other figures from the past also demand a slice of the action? And what other mysteries are there lurking at the bottom of the sea and at the top of mountains? The answers lie in The Riddle of Fractal Monks.
Praise for Jonathan Pinnock:‘Lovely stuff.’ Ian Rankin
'A series of humorous, riotous mathematical mysteries.' David Nicholls
‘He makes funny and self-deprecating company.’ The Herald
‘Jonathan Pinnock writes compelling tales with a deliciously wicked glint in his eye.’ Ian Skillicorn, National Short Story Week
‘Jonathan Pinnock is Roald Dahl’s natural successor.’ Vanessa Gebbie
‘Funny, clever, and sometimes brilliantly daft. A comedy that I am sure would have made Pythagoras, Archimedes and Douglas Adams all laugh out loud.’ Scott Pack on The Truth About Archie and Pye
Tom Winscombe is having a bad day. Trapped at the top of the tallest building in Minsk while a lethal battle between several mafia factions plays out beneath him, he contemplates the sequence of events that brought him here, starting with the botched raid on a secretive think tank and ending up in the middle of the Chernobyl exclusion zone.
More importantly, he wonders how he's going to get out of this alive when the one person who can help is currently not speaking to him.
Join Tom and a cast of disreputable and downright dangerous characters in this witty thriller set in a murky world of murder, mystery and complex equations.
Tom Winscombe and his ex-girlfriend Dorothy Chan are on a mission to crack a code – a code embedded in a chip inside two alpacas that used to belong to the famed dead mathematical geniuses, the Vavasor twins.
Their search leads them to a secretive mathematical retreat at a country house. While there, various members of the party succumb to a succession of bizarre fatal accidents. Will Tom and Dorothy succeed in their mission – and get out alive?
Join Tom and a cast of disreputable and downright dangerous characters in this witty thriller set in a murky world of murder, mystery and complex equations.