How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

 

"If TV has taught us anything, it's that the murder rate in small villages is disproportionately high." - From How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

We are midway through 2024 and I can already tell you that this book, How To Solve Your Own Murder, is not only going to be one of my best reads of 2024 but in the top 5.  Yes, friends, it's that good.

This story starts out in 1965 with three teenage girls visiting a fortune teller's tent at a fair and one of them, Frances Adams, taking the psychic's warnings of Frances's impending murder, to heart - so much so that she spends the rest of her life not only doing her best to ward off what she considers her fate but to solve her future murder.  

Flash forward to present day as Frances's great-niece Annie is summoned to the small English village of Castle Knoll, being told that Frances is changing her will and leaving everything to Annie - someone she has never met.  Naturally, there is a kink in the works as Annie discovers Frances dead and she is up against the clock to solve her great-aunt's murder as Frances has given her beneficiary a week in which to do so or her estate will pass elsewhere. 

How To Solve Your Own Murder is told both from Annie's present-day viewpoint and in the past, from Frances's journals.  Frances's journals allow not only Annie to get to know her great-aunt but for us, the readers, to also learn about her and try to solve who would want her dead.   Thanks to the deadline in which Annie has to solve Frances's murder, including reading her journals and meeting the people that had surrounded Frances for sixty years, the story moves along at a very quick pace - but not at all to the book's detriment. 

I was drawn in from the first page and tore through this book as though my life depended on it -- or as if I had the week to solve the crime.  I found Annie to be a very likable heroine and loved her journey from 1965 to present day as she learned the good, bad, and ugly about her relative and the residents of Castle Knoll who are suspects.  How To Solve Your Own Murder harkens back to the classic traditional, or cozy, mysteries written by Agatha Christie.  The plotting is meticulous and the settings of Castle Knoll and Gravestown Hall are everything you could possibly want in a mystery set in an English village.  Full disclosure:  I adore any stories set in English villages and will typically give any and all a go.  

I have to give props to Kristen Perrin, whose brilliant writing keeps you invested, intrigued, and guessing until the end.  Imagine my surprise to learn this is her first adult mystery (she has written books for middle grade children).  She killed it (pun intended). 

I am thrilled not only to have read this book but to learn that there is a sequel forthcoming, as part two of the Castle Knoll series.  I will definitely be picking the new one up on release day (and may even purchase this one to keep in my library - is it just me or is the cover absolutely gorgeous?).

If you haven't read How To Solve Your Own Murder yet, don't wait.  Do yourself a favor and get to your local bookstore or library and snap it up. It is worth every moment of your time.

Disclosure:  I borrowed this book from my local library.  My views and opinions are my own.  I was neither paid nor compensated for this review.