How To Solve Your Own Murder

If fiction is make-believe, then it could be said that Cosy Crime novels are fairy stories – not to be taken seriously, although that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t be enjoyable to read.

How to Solve Your Own Murder is Kristen Perrin’s debut novel and it is unashamedly Cosy Crime. The murder victim is an old lady called Frances Adams who, back in 1965, had been told by a fortune teller that one day she’d be murdered. No-one but Frances took the prophecy seriously but she spent the next sixty years trying to prevent the crime. And then, on the day she was due to meet with her great-niece, Annie, and two other relations to discuss the terms of her will, she is killed.

Annie is the narrator of the story. She had travelled to the Dorset village of Castle Knoll to meet her great-aunt for the first time and the surprise for everyone is that Frances’s will stipulates that the person who solves her murder will inherit her millions. Annie is twenty-five-years-old, out of work, and an aspiring writer, so she has everything to gain from this arrangement – if she can work out what happened.

The story is told in two timelines – the present-day murder investigation and in flashbacks to the 1960s which are told as diary entries by Frances. There’s a good cast of characters, ranging from Frances’s relations and friends to local villagers.

Our verdict
Despite a few question marks around the plot and characters, most of us enjoyed this. There are, as you’d expect, a lot of twists and turns in the story and even though some of them were inexplicable they kept the narrative going so it was entertaining to read.

We liked the two-timeline approach but thought the 1960s scenario was the better of the two, being more coherent. (Maybe the fact it was written as a diary had forced the author to focus on the narrative.) In contrast, the modern-day scenario jumped back and forth between characters and situations, so at times it was hard to keep everything straight. One of our group thought it would have helped to have had a ‘cast list’ to refer back to when things got confusing. Still, it was fun to see the various young characters from the diary as adults.

Annie is a ditzy heroine, rather lightly drawn, and while we weren’t expecting great literature, we did all wish the characters had more depth because some of them were unconvincing. There were also some glaring gaps in the logic and in places the plot was just plain silly. For example, Annie being allowed to see the police papers and files just because the detective fancied her. But as we’ve said already, this is a fairy story and needs to be viewed as such.

For us, the biggest irritant was that the identity of the killer came as a total surprise. Not because the plotting was so clever that we’d missed the clues but because there were no clues to speak of. It felt as if the murderer had been thrown into the mix at the last minute just to bring things to an end.

You might think from the above that we didn’t much like How to Solve Your Own Murder but that’s not the case. Mo summed it up neatly when she said this was a book to read when you wanted to switch off from the real world and not concentrate. It’s a bonkers story that’s pure escapism. Our average rating was 4 Stars, with the highest score being 4+ and the lowest 2.
Review by: Oundle Crime

Oundle Crime thanks Quercus Books and The Reading Agency for the opportunity to read How to Solve Your Own Murder. We are voluntarily giving an honest review.

How to Solve your Own Murder
Kristen Perrin

I guess this book would fit into the cosy crime category, an easy comfortable read which pulls you in.

A very intriguing title and concept for the plot although one is hardly likely to be given the news of one’s imminent death from a fortune teller.

The author paints a vivid description of each of the characters and their surroundings.  The introduction has a fairytale quality which is in stark contrast to the reality portrayed in London. I liked the amusing asides used by Laura. As the plot develops it seems like many of the characters were involved in “game playing” which became quite annoying.

The shifting timeline technique which seems to be employed as the norm these days wasnt too convoluted and didn’t get in the way of the flow of the novel.

The pace soon picked up and drew me in. There were too many characters featured, many of them related and across generations and I soon wished that I had written notes or a family tree or two to help me out.

I began to lose interest when we got to the “detection”phase.  The police seemed pretty inept and disinterested in protecting evidence or crime scenes, they contributed little to the solving of the crime and at this stage I assumed the author was not seeking authenticity.

Yes I was taken by surprise at the ending!

An enjoyable easy read. Set in 2 time periods, which are easy to follow, we meet Annie, a would-be writer who is summoned to meet her elderly, wealthy great-aunt Frances, whom she has never met. Her aunt is proposing to leave Annie her vast estate which includes the home her mother lives in in London. Her aunt has lived her life trying to solve her future murder, which was predicted by a fortune-teller at a village fair when she was young. Over the years, she has gained a reputation for being an eccentric busy-body, compiling files of information on her family, friends and neighbours, in an attempt to prevent her murder. Or assist in the solving of it, should she fail. In a lot of ways, this is a classic Agatha Christie-style murder mystery, with a crazy old lady, a Lord of the Manor, old retainers, and a gathering of relatives. As this is a popular, tried-and-tested form of fiction, it makes perfect sense for a debut novel. With the two timelines, we get to know certain characters as both young people and adults, so we can see how they have developed as people and try to work out what might have shaped them. I think that the characters are well drawn and I could visualise them quite clearly. The plot has clever twists and turns, and the added element of a race against time to solve Frances's murder and win the inheritance builds the suspense. I didn't guess the ending so it did keep my interest until the end. A good debut novel that I would recommend to fellow readers of cosy murder mysteries.

Kristen Perrin’s How to Solve Your Own Murder brilliantly blends dark humor with suspense. The protagonist’s posthumous investigation is both eerie and entertaining, as she uncovers the darker sides of her acquaintances while attempting to identify her murderer. Perrin’s witty dialogue and clever plotting create a novel that is as amusing as it is thrilling. The book’s unique concept and engaging narrative voice make it a memorable read that stands out in the crowded mystery genre.