How To Solve Your Own Murder – Book Review

For fans of Knives Out and The Thursday Murder Club, an enormously fun mystery about a woman who spends her entire life trying to prevent her foretold murder only to be proven right sixty years later, when she is found dead in her sprawling country estate…. Now it’s up to her great-niece to catch the killer.

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.

In 1965, while attending a festival with her closest friends, Frances goes to a fortune teller who tells her that someday, Frances will get murdered. Frances becomes obsessed with the fortune, doing research as who would be responsible for her own demise. Then on present day, the fortune came true when Frances was found dead in her own house. Now her grand niece- Annie, who came all the way to London at Frances’ invitation to read the will must solve her aunt’s murder–and that includes risking her own life.

This was a very interesting premise. The story is told in Annie’s POV with some excerpts from France’s diary written in 1966. The story was fast paced with a hint of humor in it, in which some parts make the reader laugh a little. The descriptions of lush landscapes, the manor and the small town makes the reader really feel like they are actually living in the English countryside. The ending wasn’t really expected but of course there were so many suspects in the book and one of them could be responsible for Frances’ murder. Overall, I actually enjoyed reading this book and cannot wait for the second book of the series.