How to Solve Your Own Murder: A Novel (Castle Knoll Files, 1) - Hardcover

Perrin, Kristen

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593474015 ISBN 13: 9780593474013

Verlag: Dutton, 2024

Inhaltsangabe

A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

A Jimmy Fallon’s Book Club Finalist for 2024 | A Goodreads Choice Awards Finalist | A GMA Buzz Pick | A USA Today Bestseller

One of Jimmy Fallon's favorite books for Spring 2024, The Top LibraryReads pick for March 2024, A Publishers Marketplace 2024 BuzzBook, One of NPR's Books We Love

Frances Adams always said she’d be murdered. She was right.

In 1965, Frances Adams is at an English country fair where a fortune-teller makes a bone-chilling prediction: One day, Frances will be murdered. It is a prediction that sparks her life’s work—trying to solve a crime that hasn’t happened yet.

Nearly sixty years later, Annie Adams is 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 found murdered, just like she always said she would be. 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 danger, she starts to fear she might inherit her aunt’s fate instead of her fortune.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kristen Perrin 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 is her adult debut.

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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-old who's had to move back home, though it does come with the baggage of dealing with Mum's moods. Since that's something I'd successfully escaped by moving out in the first place, this does feel like a step backward. But I have my own floor in the Chelsea house, and the place is falling apart in a rather romantic way. My childhood bedroom has its own chandelier, dust-covered and missing several of its crystals, and it casts a ghostly light over the antique typewriter I found in one of the cupboards. I don't actually write with it; I just sort of clunk the keys now and then for some atmosphere. It has a tartan-patterned plastic case and a 1960s vibe, which I love.

"I started sending out my latest manuscript to some literary agents," I say, and bite my lip when Jenny doesn't reply. "It's only been a week since I emailed the first few." I wipe the sweat from the back of my neck. I'm walking up Earl's Court Road, darting across traffic where I can. My backpack weighs a ton, but the library was having a sale and I couldn't resist. And I can justify buying seven hard copies of Agatha Christie books as research. "But I'm already starting to feel like my book is actually terrible."

"It's not terrible."

"No, it really is. I just couldn't see it until I actually sent it to people to read."

"But you were so confident about this one!" Jenny says. I can hear the bubble in her voice; she's getting ready to go into cheerleader mode.

I cut her off before she can really get going. "I was, but I'm wiser now. You know when a toddler randomly walks up to you, and the kid's mum is beaming at it and assuming you'll find it just as cute as she does? But the toddler's got a gooey nose and old food stuck to its clothes?"

"Ugh, yeah."

"I'm that kid's mum, and I've just sent it out into the world with a gooey nose, thinking people will see it the same way I do."

"So wipe its face. Introduce it to people when it's cleaner."

"Yeah, I think that's what editing is for."

I hear Jenny suck in a breath on the other end of the line. "Annie, are you telling me you sent a book out to literary agents and you didn't even edit it?" Jenny laughs long and hard, and it's infectious. I can't help it-I'm smiling broadly as I turn onto Tregunter Road.

"I just got so excited!" I wheeze, letting a laugh escape. "I did a thing, you know? I wrote many words, and they all culminated with THE END."

"Yes. And I'm proud of you. But I think you should at least let me read it before you send it out to any more agents."

"What? No!"

"If you won't let me read it, why are you sending it out to strangers?"

"Hanging up now, I'm nearly at the house." I shuffle to the end of the road, where Jenny is sitting on the steps waiting for me.

Mum's house sits miserably at the end of a posh row of terraces, like Halloween attending a garden party. I wave to Jenny as she dusts off her chic skirt and runs a hand through her long black hair. Her fashion sense is impeccable, and I smooth a hand down my voluminous summer dress and reconsider having bought this monstrosity. For some reason, I just seem drawn to dresses that make me look like a Victorian ghost. My pale skin and blond curls only contribute to this impression, so I might as well stop fighting it.

Like Mum, Jenny and I studied art at Central Saint Martins. Her parents moved to London from Hong Kong when Jenny was a baby and are some of the loveliest people you'll ever meet. I'd never tell Mum, but sometimes when I craved a nice stable atmosphere that included a dad and siblings, I'd head to Jenny's after school instead of going home, even when Jenny was at tennis lessons or out somewhere. Her parents would let me sit and do homework and I'd chat with the whole family while the smells of actual home cooking filled my nose.

When Jenny graduated, she landed so firmly on her feet that she's already in dream-job territory. She turned down a job in set design at the Royal Albert Hall to become part of the team that does the window displays at Harrods. She lives for it, and creates masterpieces, especially at Christmas.

"Well," she says, linking her arm through mine, "should we see what your mum's basement has in store for us?"

We both take a moment to stare up at the house. Two sets of grimy bay windows frame the large stone steps leading to the front door. A long time ago the door must have been green, but the paint has been shedding itself in layers over the years, and the wood's a bit warped. I do love it though. Four stories of whitewashed former grandeur loom upward, and most of the old velvet curtains still shroud the windows.

"Thanks for doing this with me," I say. I'm not even sure what I'm thankful for, because this is the house I grew up in. And even though it was just Mum and me, it's always been a happy place to be. I think I'm just grateful that Jenny shows up when I call her, even when the call is just something like, Hey, want to clean out an old basement with me?

"No problem," Jenny...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Dutton
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2024
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593474015
• ISBN 13: 9780593474013
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 368
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Dutton; https://www.penguin.com/dutton-childrens-overview/; ; Im Mittelfeld 25; K?ln; Deutschland; 51105; Deutschland