"Butler has the light touch of a master and a beguiling hero in the somberly monikered Coffin," says Booklist of Gwendoline Butler's critically acclaimed Inspector Coffin series. Following her many previous Coffin mysteries, Death Lives Next Door takes the reader back in time to Coffin's first case. Among her colleagues at Oxford University, Dr. Marion Manning is considered a brilliant scholar and an extraordinary woman. In the opinion of acquaintances, she is a kind, sensible person whose sound advice is as dependable as her own actions. Except for Joyo, the flamboyant character who shares her home as a housekeeper-companion, the respected don leads a solitary life, contentedly pursuing her studies. Why, then, should Marion Manning, wise, esteemed, successful, be the hapless victim of The Watcher - the strange, shadowy figure whose omnipresent eyes seem to follow her wherever she goes? Young Scotland Yard Inspector John Coffin, on the trail of a missing person in Oxford, finds that Marion Manning's problem is somehow involved with his quarry - and in a horrifying and unexpected manner, with murder.