Book Review - How to Solve Your Own Murder by Kristen Perrin

Title: How to Solve Your Own Murder (Castle Knoll Files # 1)
Author: Kristen Perrin
Genre: Mystery
Published: 2024
 
Description: It’s 1965 and teenage Frances Adams is at an English country fair with her two best friends, Emily and Rose. But Frances’s life takes a turn when a fortune teller make 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 cosses her path in an effort to prevent her own demise. For decades, no one takes Frances seriously. Until that is, nearly sixty years later, when Frances is found murdered.
 
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 the time Annie arrives in the quaint English village of Catle Knoll, Frances is already dead. Annie is determined to catch the killer, but thanks to Frances’s lifelong habit of digging up secrets, 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 ger great ant’s fate instead of her fortune.
 
Review: In “How to Solve Your Own Murder” we follow Annie, who is on her way to her great-aunt Frances. When she arrives, Frances is found dead. We also follow the storyline of a young Frances, who visits a fortune teller, who tells her Frances will someday be murdered. This turns her life upside down and her whole life she is trying to find out who will murder her. But, it’s too late. Now it’s up to Annie to find out who had it in for her great-aunt.
 
I always enjoyed dual timelines. We follow the present, where Annie is trying to figure out what happened to Frances. And we go back in time, where Frances is young and finds out about her fate, which eventually controls her life. Because Frances documented everything in a diary, Annie does get some help, but she still has to try and solve the mystery herself. And she learns that the people in this town have many secrets.
 
“How to Solve Your Own Murder” has an interesting premise and it does start out great. The mystery is fun to dive into. I never really got invested into any of the characters and felt like most of them were very naïve people. And am I the only one that thinks that the request in Frances’s will was kind of ridiculous and it could potentially put the people involved in danger? Even though I like an amateur sleuth story, they mostly choose to do so themselves. Annie is somehow forced in that role, even though she would have probably gone in that direction herself. It still feels a bit weird. Because more people are put in this position in trying to solve the murder, the stakes are higher.  
 
I’m okay with authors being detailed. Especially in describing surroundings or settings. But I really don’t care about what people are wearing. The characters in this story seem to be obsessed by other people’s appearances. I did not enjoy that.
 
I think “How to Solve Your Own Murder” is an okay mystery, nothing surprising or ground-breaking. Had a good time reading it, but will probably forget about it within a week.
 
Rating: 3/ 5