How To Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin Book Review

It’s very easy to take someone’s premonitions to heart. Whether it’s an off-the-cuff comment that you hear about yourself growing up or a supernatural prediction that you either dream or prophesize due to some spiraling thought process or sequence of events, sometimes you can get so attached to an idea that it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Author Kristen Perrin has taken this idea and molded it into an intriguing murder mystery with her novel, How to Solve Your Own Murder.

How To Solve Your Own Murder plot summary

Aspiring mystery writer Annie Adams suddenly finds herself one of several individuals invited to her Great Aunt Frances’ estate in the English countryside. Upon arriving at Gravesdown Hall, Annie and the others who have been called to the home find that Frances has been murdered, fulfilling a prophecy given to Frances by a fortune teller at a country fair when Frances was a teenager. This fortune became an obsession with Frances, and Annie sets out to find out who has fulfilled that destiny.

The story

How to Solve Your Own Murder is told from both Annie’s modern-day point of view and Frances’ journal entries from the mid-60s. Early on, we learn that Frances has good reason to take her fortune seriously. Not long after her reading, her best friend, Emily, goes missing, and many of the details that are revealed in the fortune appear to connect to the people in her life and the events that follow.

This decades-old disappearance later ties into Frances’ own murder, and Annie begins forming theories on what happened to both women by analyzing  the actions of the individuals who had ties to Frances, Emily, and their other best friend, Rose. Many of these characters and their offspring are still connected to Gravesdown Hall and find themselves more deserving of an inheritance than a distant relative like Annie.

However, confident of her fate, Frances set up her will in a way in which only one of a few individuals are qualified to inherit, and they have a week to solve her murder and inherit the estate. Driven more by the thrill of the hunt and her desire to keep her mom at Chelsea House, a small home that Frances let them live in for years, Annie sets off on her quest to solve her Great Aunt’s murder and uncover a myriad of conspiracies, secrets, and crimes that have long been buried.

The premise

The premise of the story itself is very grabbing. It’s almost a prerequisite for a modern mystery novel to intertwine multiple mysteries together.

The blending of past and present is also a very intriguing take on the genre that draws in modern mystery readers who like to have multiple decks shuffled to make the story fuller and more difficult to decipher. A classic whodunit with one storyline on one timeline just isn’t enough for a modern audience who feel like they have seen it all. So, Perrin is wise to pack in multiple subplots and timelines.

I thought the fortune telling aspect would bring a possible supernatural element to the story or at least play a more significant role. Instead, it’s just more of a coincidence as to how much it matches up with the events of the story as they unfold. However, maybe that’s the point of an effective reading. We find a way to make those details fit so that it’s forced to make sense.

On the other hand, there are sequels to this novel in the works, so the story remains unfinished with a lot of loose ends and a lot more backstory to explore. So, those coincidences may get explained later in the series.

The characters

Our hero, Annie, is your typical intrepid sleuth. She’s the outsider who gets in the way of the police, the other victims, and the villains as she noses her way into the details of the murder.

And there are a lot of characters in the mix. In fact, there are so many that I began to lose track of who is who, particularly when they disappear for large sections of the story.

That being said, it’s the characters who show up in both Frances’ and Annie’s chapters that are the most intriguing. It’s interesting to see how the events of the past affect the older characters in the future and where they all end up.

Admittedly, I had to roll my eyes at Frances’ stipulations in her will. As someone who was so paranoid about how she would meet her demise, it seemed out of character for her to turn her paranoia into a game that she herself would never get to watch play out.

Frances is portrayed as the naïve and practical one in their friends group. So, to turn her into an eccentric widow who likes to toy with the less fortunate seemed a little too theatrical for her character.

The tone

I wouldn’t define this story as a cozy mystery, but it isn’t overly graphic or dark. The sequence of events that unfold in Frances’ life do come off as plausible and realistic. There are also some shocking surprises that twist and turn the story in that rollercoaster ride that mystery readers crave.

The strongest theme throughout the book is female friendships. The three distinct personalities in Frances, Rose, and Emily lead to the conflicts that set the events of the story in motion. They are each driven by different motivations, and those motivations clash and create disastrous consequences. It’s a lesson most girls have experienced growing up hanging out with a group of three girls. It’s just too odd of a number to work out for everyone.

Between young Frances and Annie, our heroes are young, but this book doesn’t feel like it caters to a young audience. With the 60s chapters mixed in with the current events and the aging of certain principal characters, it feels like this book was written for a mixed bag of readers, though, admittedly those target readers are most likely going to be female.

There also aren’t a lot of modern investigative techniques used in the story. Most of Annie’s research comes from a handwritten journal and documents from a filing cabinet. The old estate is full of antique cars and furnishings that seem to transport the reader into a more classic setting that feels both intentional and realistic considering it deals with the murder of an old woman who likely didn’t keep up with the times. I found that to be very refreshing and a great way to tell a modern murder mystery in a very classic way.

My recommendation

I recommend How To Solve Your Own Murder to mystery lovers looking for a light, yet intriguing murder mystery. It’s not the murder itself that’s as interesting as the relationships between these characters and the twists and turns life takes from the life you imagine in your youth to the one that ultimately unfolds as life throws its curve balls. It’s always intense to watch characters slide down a slippery slope and see how far down those slopes will take them, and that’s what makes it so fun for the reader who gets to experience these events from a safe distance.

My rating

Buy it!

Buy a copy of How To Solve Your Own Murder here, and help support local bookstores! This is an affiliate link, and I will earn a commission on any sales.

Pin it!