How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin
Published: March 2024
Summary from Goodreads:
It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends. But Frances’s night takes a hairpin turn when a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. Frances spends a lifetime trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet, compiling dirt on every person who crosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously, until nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered, like she always said she would be.
In the present day, Annie Adams has been summoned to a meeting at the sprawling country estate of her wealthy and reclusive great-aunt Frances. But by the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets and lies, it seems every endearing and eccentric villager might just have a motive for her murder. Can Annie safely unravel the dark mystery at the heart of Castle Knoll, or will dredging up the past throw her into the path of a killer?
As Annie gets closer to the truth, and closer to the danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.
Confession:
This was a fun cozy mystery that I enjoyed reading even though it was a little slow in the middle. I enjoyed the characters, the setting and the two murder mysteries were hard to figure out which is always a plus.
The story is told through two timelines and I enjoyed both of them. In the present we have Annie, who is a young lady trying to figure out where she is going in her life. She is smart and pretty savvy and I really enjoyed spending time with her. She has good instincts as well in knowing who she should trust or not. I loved how she kept a journal of all of the clues and things that she found out about her aunt and the mysterious disappearance of her friend in the ’60s.
The diary entries were very interesting. They are written by Francis as a teenager and told about the few years before her best friend Emily disappeared. I enjoyed learning about Francis and her friends and what it was like living in a small English village in the ’60s. The group of three girls, Francis, Emily and Rose were very close, but also were somewhat dysfunctional. I don’t think if they had grown up somewhere where there were more kids to be friends with that they wouldn’t have been friends. Francis comes across as the best of the three of them, being very smart and clever herself.
The pacing, though slow in the middle was well done throughout the rest of the story. The two mysteries were very well done, with all of the clues laid out nicely, with no questions by the end of the story. I didn’t quite have it figured out until Annie did showed me the way. The writing was also well done. The small village setting was perfect for this story as was the dual timeline. There are a nice bunch of somewhat quirky secondary characters which added to the fun.
This ended up being a lot more fun to read than I thought it was going to be. If you enjoy cozy mysteries with dual timelines than this is one you want on your list. There is a second one coming out next week, and I am very much looking forward to spending time with these characters and the village of Castle Knoll.
Confessions of a Serial Reader 