How to Solve Your Own Murder

“Everyone ignores Frances. She’s nutty. So much so that she’s a local legend—the weird old lady with a huge country house and piles of money, just digging up dirt on anyone who crosses her path in case they might turn out to be her murderer.”

Here Laura, Annie’s mom, sums up Frances from everyone’s point of view except Annie’s. Annie, once she gets to the estate, feels empathy with her aunt. Shared traits like their love of writing and solving mysteries make Annie relate to Frances and so again proves she is the right daughter spoken about in the fortune. This quote, however, shows what Frances has become in the eyes of the community, a contrast to what the first few entries in the journal so far imply. Seeing the difference between the older Frances’s reputation and the younger’s behavior creates a question for the novel to answer about what happened in order to change Frances’s personality so dramatically.

“I’m writing this all here because I just know there will be things I’ve seen that might matter further down the road. Some details that seem small now will turn out to be extremely important or the other way around. So I’m keeping everything together, and I’m making careful notes.”

This quote shows a similarity between the narrators and, while this is Frances speaking, could be either her or Annie. They both think through their problems with writing, showing their inherent connection and suggesting again that Annie, not Laura, is the correct daughter to help Frances achieve justice. It also calls to the theme of The Power of the Written Word, as the entries started on page 15 do indeed provide the clues to solving the mystery.

“The village of Castle Knoll is like a picture on a biscuit tin—all narrow lanes and dry-stone walls, with a tall hill at one end that holds the crumbling ruins of a Norman castle on its shaggy shoulders. Sheep even graze its slopes, and I can hear the odd bleating from my seat as we navigate the road around the castle.”

The settings in cozy mysteries are as much a story element as the characters that populate them. The beautiful English village comes with stock characters that appear in How To Solve Your Own Murder such as the doctor, the gardener, the outsider detective, the vicar, and the local police. The setting thematically supports Appearance Versus Reality in Small Towns. Frances and Annie both work to uncover the darkness in human nature that hides beneath the seemingly beautiful and quiet exterior, a discovery mirroring the setting itself.

“I have the overwhelming sense that I have things to do here, regardless of whatever inheritance issues there are now. I picture Great Aunt Frances’s murder board and find that I desperately want to know who she really was, and what drove her obsession.”

Annie has little connection to the village, the people, and her great-aunt until this moment when she sees and is intrigued by Frances as a person. Perrin creates a personal connection between the two narrators to give Annie a more powerful motivation to solve the crime.

“Whenever I meet someone like this (which is rare, because who has a quietly commanding presence these days, outside of classical literature?), I make it a point to be careful. Just because a fluke of genetics makes someone sound reassuring doesn’t mean you should be reassured by them.”

Annie’s description of Detective Rowan Crane pokes fun at the genre and the inevitable attraction that is expected. Here, the relationship is set up but kept at arm’s length to extend the tension between the characters over the course of the novel and into the rest of the series.

“And excluding me felt like a typical plan of Emily’s, so I’d take that up with her later. It also explained why Rose had been so unlike herself recently. She’s fiercely loyal, and clearly this whole thing had made her uneasy.”

This quote shows the odd dynamic that is beginning to occur within the friend group. Emily likes to play games. Additionally, the word fierce being associated with Rose is important and shows she is beginning to act aggressively in response to the tension between the girls. It foreshadows the act of murder Rose will commit less than a year later.

“My mind raced, and I thought of all the types of queens I might have held in the palm of one hand recently, as if tiny queens being commonplace would take away the power of the words. Coins—those are everywhere, and hadn’t I played cards with my brother just last week? I knew I’d held a queen then.”

This quote shows the beginnings of Frances’s obsessive thinking when it comes to her fortune, thematically supporting The Warping Nature of Obsession. The objects mentioned could be found in so many places that her doom begins to feel like it’s everywhere. Frances is flooded with paranoia and the need to solve her own puzzle before it is too late, which detracts from her quality of life.

“My favorite chess saying is very simple: You can play without a plan, but you’ll probably lose.”

This quote from Ford echoes throughout the novel. Frances, Saxon, Ford, and Emily all play mental games for their own benefit. An example is Frances’s will, the ultimate game that can vindicate her and destroy the village. It exposes Frances’s selfish intention behind the games and plans. Annie, however, plays games in a defensive role. While it is not natural for her to scheme, she does it with the intention of saving her mother’s home and the village and so emerges a victorious hero rather than a scheming villain.

“I can’t help it—my jaw drops. This man not only eavesdropped on my whole conversation, but he’s Mum’s ex-boyfriend? And now he’s just happy to jump right into my business? Who the hell does he think he is?”

One of the tropes of the genre is when the outsider comes up against the realities of small village life. Here, Annie exemplifies this by not having figured out that everyone is related or knows each other. To bring matters closer, the cab driver eavesdropping is also the detective’s father. This quote speaks to the theme of Appearance Versus Reality in Small Towns as this familiarity can be both charming and indicative of a darker or complex history.

“My stomach twists, and I feel worse with every drawer I open. I don’t know whether to feel angry at Great Aunt Frances for reducing her friends and neighbors to their indiscretions, or sorry for her for spending a lifetime swimming in a sea of such distrust.”

Annie acknowledges the theme of The Warping Nature of Obsession. While she wants justice for her great aunt, she begins to realize how dark Frances’s mind had gone and how much she had isolated herself. This prompts Annie’s insistence in the last chapter that the entire community come see Frances’s study and celebrate her life. It is Annie’s way of making sure Frances is seen in a more positive light by the people of the village.

“Rose’s voice cracks, and one hand flies to her face suddenly, like a small bird startled from its hiding place.”

This is a major clue. It is the only time Rose or any character is compared to a bird, a motif usually associated with Emily and the betrayer. It gives away the fact that it is ultimately Rose and not Emily who betrays Frances and Rose’s actions (murdering Emily and leaving threats erroneously found by Frances) that lead to Frances’s psychological downfall and obsessive life. This, followed by the quote two lines later, “‘I was her best friend,’ she (Rose) says fiercely. I start at the change in her tone, but I know that grief is a funny thing,” exposes Rose’s hidden darkness and gives the motive and the murderer away (116).

“My last act on this earth is to make believers out of both of you, and hopefully, in the process, make believers out of the entire town.”

This quote shows the tragedy of The Warping Nature of Obsession. Frances chooses to play a game with the well-being of an entire town of people to prove she was right about something rather than leave a legacy of generosity. It is up to Annie to rectify this and in doing so save Frances’s reputation and achieve justice for her murder.

“But thinking like a TV detective isn’t a bad place to start. In most crime shows and murder mysteries, there’s a time just after the victim dies, when whoever is investigating asks several standard questions. They’re usually some variation of, Did she have any enemies? and Was there anything odd about her behavior before she was killed? and Who was the last person to see her alive?”

Perrin is again engaging in a moment of tongue-in-cheek meta referencing, having her characters know the conventions of the genre they are actively characters in. Moments like this keep the novel light and generally happen around chapters where darker information is discovered as a moment of relief from the more intense themes of obsession.

“‘But honestly, and this is off the record’—he turns to me for a fraction of a second before his eyes are back on the road—‘I just want to see what happens when you have all the right tools at your disposal.’ I grin. I think that’s as close as he’s going to get to admitting he’s on my team.”

In the typical village-centered cozy mysteries, law enforcement is typically shown in two ways: the obstructionist authority figure who gets shown up in the end, or the helpful ally who often becomes a romantic possibility if the protagonist is an amateur. In this quote, Detective Crane proves himself to be the latter. While keeping appearances of doing his job, he clearly wants Annie to succeed and encourages or looks out for her throughout the book.

“I’ve just got so much rage, Frances! Why does everyone around me get blissful lives, parents that care for them and love them, and relationships that show them how special they are? Why do I just get beauty and air and cruelty?”

Perrin gives Emily a moment of characterization that she doesn’t give to the other two girls in the friend group. Her actions become more comprehensible and explain The Warping Nature of Obsession when it comes to how Emily behaves toward Frances. Perrin doesn’t choose to illuminate Rose in the same way. Her obsession with Frances is hinted at with action and never expressed verbally as it is with Emily. This deliberate withholding of information on the writer’s part makes Rose’s obsession and actions more of a surprise at the end.

“You can play without a plan, but you’ll probably lose. I decide to form a plan of my own, and beat Saxon at his own game.”

This quote refers back to Ford’s on page 97. It shows that Annie is internalizing the lessons of the characters she is reading about and learning how to deal with people who are accustomed to mentally manipulating others, particularly Saxon. While Saxon and Frances use their games for selfish reasons, Annie does it to bring justice and save people around her.

“After all, that was a cornerstone of her personality—she had a very firmly defined sense of justice, and a conviction in her fortune that was practically religious.”

This quote depicts Frances’s dual nature and intentionally uses neutral words to do so. The resulting impression is that Annie herself isn’t sure if Frances’s idea of justice is positive or negative. While a sense of justice and a firm conviction is usually seen as admirable, Annie has seen the result of Frances’s obsessive conviction being Frances’s own death and the endangerment of a community. Annie ends the book refraining from judgment but celebrating Frances’s life anyway, a move that makes Annie a trustworthy narrator and detective as it shows she will treat people fairly and with kindness.

“And as I walked around town, hoping her face would just float out of a crowd, I started to care about Emily more, and Castle Knoll less. Because the more I listened and the more I watched, the more I learned. And everything I learned was vile.”

This quote speaks directly to the theme of Appearance Versus Reality in Small Towns. Frances has chosen to focus on the negative aspects of her friends and neighbors. This is the beginning of her downward trajectory that, in the end, results in her caring so little for them that she intends to either destroy the entire town or teach them a posthumous lesson in revenge for how they treated her. It’s a bitter response to what she sees in her neighbors and sums up the dark aspect of this theme.

“Another tear fell as I drew back from the kiss, and I felt like something was ripping in my chest. It was more than just saying good-bye to John; it was the knowledge that I was turning away from the parts of me that he thought were the best. My choice was to follow all the threads of unpleasant stories about Emily, to weave myself in and out of the fabric of Castle Knoll, learning everything about everyone until I found the truth.”

This is the turning point moment for Frances’s character where she feels herself make the choice to be absorbed in dark obsession of her friend’s disappearance and her own fortune. On the previous pages, John says Frances met others’ manipulations with forgiveness, generosity, and peace. Frances’s will, however, shows that by the time she died, this part of her had been overcome by her obsessive, paranoid personality.

“‘I know I can’t replace Frances, but maybe you’d like to have coffee with me?’ I say weakly.

‘Are you planning on staying in Castle Knoll?’ he asks. His whole face lifts, and the tug of family pulls at me so deeply that I know just where I want to be.

‘Yes,’ I say, and with conviction. ‘I am.’”

Just prior to this quote, Annie recognizes her own features in John Oxley and feels a tug of something she calls family. Here she is verbally committing to the community of Castle Knoll. Making this commitment before she’s won the inheritance shows her positive engagement with the community, the exact opposite of Frances’s treatment of the same place and people.

“Mother did Frances the biggest favor of her life—she made sure Emily would never hurt her again. That’s what strong people do! They protect the ones they love! And Frances was destroying Mother. It was time for me to be the one to protect her.”

The Warping Nature of Obsession isn’t limited to Frances’s generation. Rose has passed on to her son the exact same twisted reasoning that enabled her to kill Emily. Part of Perrin’s theme shows how obsession, even when it’s rooted in virtue, can be dangerous. Here, Joe expresses this idea exactly.

“And in the diary, the focus on clothes started to reveal that the three friends had a toxic sort of closeness.”

This quote sums up the girls’ relationship in a single word, toxic. However, it also raises questions. While it becomes obvious that the friends were obsessed with or jealous of the others, the novel doesn’t explore why this is except for a single mention from Emily. It is left unsaid why Rose feels the way she does or why Frances is the object of so much attention. This lack of deep character exploration is a function of the genre itself. A cozy mystery’s goal is often less about building character and more about creating and solving a puzzle.

“He’s out there, your dad. He’s not a very good man, and now that we’re both making the news, I expect he might turn up again.”

Here Laura warns Annie about something that’s only been briefly mentioned so far. Her father’s story wasn’t explored after Annie obtained the file on him, and Annie intentionally put the folder aside. This last-moment reminder becomes a moment of foreshadowing and hints about what Annie may deal with in a future novel.