Mystery Review: How to Solve Your Own Murder | Kristen Perrin

It’s one thing to try to solve someone else’s murder, but do you think you could solve your own murder before it even happens? In Kristen Perrin’s latest mystery, How to Solve Your Own Murder, a woman spends a good portion of her life trying to solve her own inevitable murder before it happens, only for her great-niece to pick up the trail. Fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club will love this debut adult mystery.

About the Book | How to Solve Your Own Murder

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.

Review | How to Solve Your Own Murder

This is the perfect type of cozy mystery for my tastes. It is a clever, complex, and engaging without being fluffy or kitschy. The story moves back and forth between two timelines and two narrators (one in the past timeline that is told through journal entries, and one in the present). I loved that the mystery was being tackled in both timelines, and clues dropped in one linked to clues in the other.

The story begins with Frances Adams who was a teenager in 1965 living in England. She journals the events of her life, particularly as they relate to the disappearance of a local girl and one of her best friends, Emily Sparrow. Frances, Emily, and their other best friend Rose are at the county fair when they go to see a psychic. “Your future contains dry bones […] all signs point towards your murder” she is told somberly—a phrase that dictates the rest of her life. The psychic isn’t the first sign that death is chasing Frances—she also received a threatening note before even going to the fair.

Meanwhile sixty years later, a twenty-something mystery writer named Annie Adams is working on her book while “in between jobs” when she is summoned to visit her eccentric and estranged great-aunt Frances. Frances is extremely wealthy, but her life has been consumed with an attempt to solve her own murder before she’s even met her demise. Annie heads to Frances’s estate, Castle Knoll, to discuss changes to her will that will make Annie the beneficiary of her estate after the psychic’s prediction that “daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close.”

Not long after arriving at Castle Knoll, Annie is able to see the dysfunctional web of relationships surrounding her great-aunt. Her dear friend and attorney, Walter Gordon, is present—as is his son Oliver. And it isn’t long before Frances is found dead on the floor of unknown causes—was this a natural death, or did Frances finally predict her own murder?

Interspersed between Annie’s story are entries from Frances’s journal going all the way back to the day of the psychic reading. Her story chronicles the disappearance of her dear friend Emily Sparrow. The reading of the will reveals that Frances wants to leave her entire estate to whoever uncovers the truth behind her murder. Frances isn’t the only one who may be looking to solve it—also present are Frances’s nephew Saxon (and his wife Elva) are present, as are Walter, Oliver, and the charismatic Detective Crane.

The others underestimate Annie, who appears the youngest and weakest person looking to solve the murder. However, her connection to Frances through her diary is not to be overlooked. The diary reveals the complicated friendship between Frances, Rose, and Emily, as well as Emily’s disappearance. Frances becomes even more convinced to solve the murder and get justice for Frances. Tension mounts as the investigation goes on, and Annie becomes in tangled in a game that may have deadly consequences.

The mystery is clever and the investigation follows logic and skills of deduction from start to finish. I was hooked the full way through, especially having the diary entries from Frances to read. Annie may be the main character and narrator, but Frances is the one who steals the show. She has a spicy personality that I really enjoyed from the very beginning of her chapters all the way to the end. Annie is actually a character that is likable and sympathetic, but is less present emotionally in the story. Her role is the detective and the person we are rooting for to solve the mystery, but Frances is the one with the emotional relationships to other characters. Annie is a lens that provides us more insight into the people surrounding Frances who may have led to her death.

 The story carried more weight than the average cozy mystery, which for my reading enhances the experience. Annie uncovers several troubling details about Frances’s life and eventual murder that bring depth to the story. It was fascinating, though at times heartbreaking, to see the Frances from the diary entries knowing that she has finally met her murderer in the present timeline. I was captivated start to finish and found the mystery to have plenty of twists and turns along the way to keep my mind engaged. The door also seems to be left open for another mystery set around Castle Knoll. I suspect that we may continue to learn more about Annie in the future, if she returns to our bookshelves with a new mystery to solve.

Audiobook Review

Books that have an atmospheric, haunting vibe to them work so well for audiobooks, so I was excited to have the opportunity to review the audiobook in addition to the hardcover. How to Solve Your Own Murder is narrated by Alexandra Dowling and Jaye Jacobs. It was the right call to cast two narrators for this book because it made it easy to remember when I was in Frances’s diaries and when I was in Annie’s present-day investigation. Both narrators did an outstanding job capturing the voice of their characters and setting the tone for the eerie events of the novel, especially in the past timeline. An excellent audiobook for fans of mysteries!

Thank you to Dutton and Penguin Random House for my copy. Opinions are my own.

About the Author | Kristen Perrin

Kristen Perrin is originally from Seattle, Washington, where she spent several years working as a bookseller before immigrating to the UK to do a Masters and PhD. She’s passionate about books and loves working on projects that have a mystery at their heart. She lives with her family in Surrey, where she can be found poking around vintage bookstores, stomping in the mud with her two kids, and collecting too many plants.