Read more
Informationen zum Autor Kristen Perrin is the New York Times bestselling author of the Castle Knoll Murder Mysteries . She is originally from Seattle, Washington, where she spent several years working as a bookseller before moving to the UK to do a master's and PhD. She lives with her family in Surrey, where she can be found poking around vintage bookstores, stomping in the mud with her two kids, and collecting too many plants. Her middle-grade series, Attie and the World Breakers , was published in German, Dutch, and Polish. How to Solve Your Own Murder was her adult debut. Klappentext "A dual narrative, feel good mystery in which a woman, Frances, spends a lifetime trying to prevent her murder as predicted by a fortune teller at a country fair when she was just 17. When she is in fact murdered nearly 60 years later, her great niece Annie must solve the crime to avenge her great aunt's death, and in so doing uncovers the dark heart of the quaint English village of Castle Knoll, where she might just find herself in the path of the killer"-- Leseprobe 1 It's one of those heavy summer evenings where the air feels so thick you could swim in it. When I surface from my journey on the Piccadilly Line, even the staleness of Earl's Court Station feels like a breath of fresh air. By the time I make it up the three flights of stairs to street level, I'm winded and rummaging through my backpack for my water bottle. All I find is a Thermos full of stale coffee from this morning. Slim men in suits sail past me like urban gazelles while I gulp down the dregs. It's as disgusting as I anticipated it might be, but I need the caffeine. My phone buzzes and I pull it from my pocket, resisting the urge to check my email and instead answering the call flashing across the screen. "Jenny." I let all the exhaustion finally leak out, into my voice. "Please tell me you're on your way. I can't face Mum's basement again without backup. Last week when I was cleaning it out there were spiders. Huge ones." "I'm already here," she says. "But Annie, I'm staying on the front step until you arrive, because I don't feel like being dragged around the house by your mum while she tells me which walls she's knocking down." "Good call. Also, I don't think she's allowed to knock down walls in that house; we don't even own it." "That's a good enough reason then. And I imagine she's on one of her design rampages, with her private exhibition at the Tate looming." I wince. Mum's a painter-quite a famous and successful one actually. Or she was, until interest in her work dried up. Unfortunately, this career slump coincided with the loss of the fortune she made from her earlier work, so for most of my life we've walked a fine line between living like squatters and being frugal because it's bohemian and arty. "I mean, Mum's design rampages will keep me from endlessly checking my empty inbox, so I'm actually on board with whatever she wants me to do. I have a backpack full of paint swatches and lots of pent-up frustration. I'm ready to tackle this basement. Except for the spiders-those have your name on them." "Aw, my very own army of spiders," Jenny coos. "Just what I've always wanted." She pauses for a beat, as if she's considering her next words carefully. "Why is an empty inbox bothering you? Have you sent out more writing?" Jenny's been my best friend since we were nine. Last month I was made redundant from my low-paying office job, and she stepped up as the perfect mix of shoulder-to-cry-on and motivational-life-coach. She made a great case for me using this as an opportunity to follow my dreams and pursue a career writing murder mysteries, because not every struggling writer has a mum with an eight-bedroom house in central London who'll let you live rent-free in exchange for help with odd jobs. It's not the typical setup for a twenty-five-year-o...
