“Your future contains dry bones” so begins How to Solve Your Own Murder and the fate for one of the main characters of the book, Frances. Sixteen-year-old Frances receives a prophecy from a fortune teller that spells out a series of events that will ultimately end with her murder. Frances ends up obsessing over the prophecy for the rest of her life until almost sixty years later she is murdered. As a final tribute to her lifelong pursuit to solving her prophecy, Frances stipulates that the beneficiary to her vast estate (or more like her late husband’s) needs to solve her murder within a week or else it will be sold off to a developer. There are only two beneficiaries vying for the inheritance: Saxon, the nephew to Frances’ late husband and Annie, Frances’ grandniece.
Annie has literally just arrived in town under the guise of meeting her great aunt for the first time only to find her dead and is immediately thrown into this bizarre murder solving race. Luckily for Annie, she is a budding mystery writer, so she can put her skills to use. I don’t want to get into any more details to avoid spoiling anything but the story shifts back and forth between Annie’s present and Frances’ past and ultimately merges for a satisfying conclusion.
I enjoyed this book (4 stars!) – it is a quick read and even though it is not overly surprising I think I was most surprised how much I just liked the concept and execution of the story. My only real complaint is that I was a little confused by the timing with Frances’ past storyline because it is presented as dated journal entries, but the events happened several months prior. I can see this being made into a streaming series/movie sometime soon, especially since it is being set up as the beginning of a series of books that I would assume focusing on Annie solving more mysteries in the future
