Review: "How to Solve Your Own Murder," Kristen Perrin

In 1966, teenager Frances Adams has her fortune told, and it’s not good. “Your future contains dry bones,” Madame Peony Lane intones. And there’s more.

Frances never forgets the seer’s ominous words. She becomes obsessed with her impending doom, especially after her friend Emily disappears. Frances is determined to figure out what happened to her, and what the fortune teller’s cryptic words mean.

Now in her mid-70s, Frances, has summoned her grandniece, Annie Adams, to her country estate, Gravesdown Hall. Annie wonders if she is to become Frances’ heir, instead of her mother. But soon after Annie arrives in the quaint village of Castle Knoll, Frances is found dead.

Then Annie learns she has to vie for her inheritance by solving her aunt’s murder. Her opponent is her cousin, Saxon. If both of them fail, or the police figure out “whodunnit” first, the estate will be put up for sale and probably be developed into housing.

In other words, the stakes are high. Annie is a pleasant young woman who is prone to panic attacks. She faints on occasion. But Annie is also a budding murder mystery writer, and so has a few tricks up her sleeve. And she doesn’t want to lose the house in London where she’s lived her whole life with her mother—it’s part of the estate too.

So off readers go on a charming and exciting romp to see who will solve the mystery and win the prize. Frances has left behind a “murder room” of documents, images and theories relating to the prophecy, as well as her teenage diary, “The Castle Knoll Files.” It’s fun to see the grown-up versions of the people Frances knew back then, in the present-day sections of the novel.

They include Frances’ boyfriend, John, now the local vicar, and her best friend, Rose, who runs the local hotel. Rose also is the grandmother of police detective Rowan Crane. The solicitor, Walter Gordon, once dated the missing Emily. Saxon was a sneaky, snarky kid back then.

Reading the diaries, Annie gains perspective on the village denizens. She doesn’t know whom to trust.

But she perseveres. Not only is Frances’ murder solved by the end of the book, but Emily’s story is revealed as well.

How to Solve Your Own Murder has a clever premise, but the author didn’t stop there. This is a solid, enjoyable mystery with fun characters in a picturesque setting. The goings-on in those darling English villages—it never ceases to amaze me.