How to Solve Your Own Murder

In the present timeline, 25-year-old Annie Adams walks through London to Chelsea, where she lives with her visual artist mother, Laura. Her friend Jenny meets her at the rundown, large house that belongs to Annie’s Great Aunt Frances. Jenny encourages Annie about her latest detective manuscript. They recently cleaned out the basement of the Chelsea house and sent multiple trunks and boxes to Frances’s mansion in Dorset. Jenny asks about Frances, and Annie says Frances sends her mother a monthly allowance and allows them to live in the house, but Annie has never met her great-aunt despite Laura being the sole inheritor. Frances’s solicitor then requests Annie come to a meeting regarding Annie now being the sole benefactor of the estate. They discuss the prediction of Frances’s murder and say that Great Aunt Frances has lived her entire life trying to figure it out. It seems she has now decided Annie is “the right one” the fortune mentions and not Laura (3).

In 1966, Frances says odd things have been happening even before she was given the fortune, including finding a note in her pocket that read “I’ll put your bones in a box” (15). She will keep a journal to record events so she can put clues together. Police have interviewed her about Emily vanishing almost a year exactly after the fortune was told.

Annie travels to Dorset and the town of Castle Knoll, admiring the small, picturesque village. She goes to Mr. Gordon’s law office and he welcomes her, saying Frances’s car has broken down so they will need to go to the estate. His handsome grandson Oliver arrives, as does a woman named Elva, who assumes she and her husband Saxon (Frances’s husband’s nephew) will inherit everything. She is furious when Mr. Gordon implies otherwise. Elva is rude about Frances being crazy and questions why Oliver is present. Mr. Gordon clarifies Frances didn’t ask for Elva, only for Saxon. Oliver offers Annie a ride to the Gravesdown estate before things get more heated.

In 1966, Frances says the police are dredging the river for Emily’s body, particularly where it’s deep by the Gravesdown estate. Frances’s brother Peter is there with the new baby Laura who Frances likes, and Tansy, Frances’s sister-in-law, who she doesn’t.

In the present, Annie finds Oliver abrasive and snobbish despite being handsome as they drive to the estate. He looks down on Castle Knoll, saying he didn’t really live there since he was at boarding school most of his life. He is now a property developer in London. The large house, Gravesdown Hall, is large and gloomy. The door is locked and no one answers. Oliver asks Archie Foyle, the gardener working nearby, if he has a key. Archie notes that Oliver is back, and Oliver tells Annie he was there at breakfast to go over grounds plans with Frances. Foyle tells Annie he has a farm that is now part of the estate property but also is the main gardener for Gravesdown Hall. He doesn’t have a key. Elva and Mr. Gordon arrive and knock but there is still no answer. Mr. Gordon has keys. When they go in, they find flowers mid-arrangement in a large, seemingly empty room. All at once they see a bloody hand on the floor behind the desk.

In 1966, Frances writes about the first time they snuck onto the Gravesdown Estate. Emily and Walt Gordon are a couple, as are John and Frances. Rose has also come on her own, having rejected both Archie Foyle and Teddy Crane. It’s nighttime and they are discussing the sudden death of most of the Gravesdown family in a recent car accident, leaving the 20-year-old younger son Rutherford “Ford” as the heir and raising his nephew, Saxon. Rutherford had married but his wife left. Emily says there’s more to the story. Frances is bothered that Emily seems to be mimicking her style and mannerisms and is picking on Rose. Emily says Rutherford murdered his wife, and then, a little boy appears in the glow of their lighters. John grabs him. It is 7-year-old Saxon who says he isn’t afraid of trespassers and knows all their names. Rutherford Gravesdown then steps out of the darkness.

In the present, Annie notes that Frances’s hands aren’t cut but punctured. The blood makes her feel faint. Elva laughs, saying someone has actually done what Frances was afraid of for so many years. She calls the paramedics and not the police. Annie wonders why. They go into the next room, which is Frances’s study. It is devoted to the prediction of her murder. Elva begins to pull sticky notes and photographs off the wall and crumple them. Annie feels even more faint but yells for Elva to stop touching things and says that there may be evidence. There is a second murder investigation board around Emily’s disappearance that shows Mr. Gordon as a teenager. Annie sees the fortune written down with tick marks, as if Frances was checking off things that had come true. The phrase about dry bones looks recently checked.

The paramedics arrive—a woman with purple hair in her 60s, Magda, and a man in his 40s, Joe Leroy. Annie realizes Saxon is the coroner who will do the autopsy. Gordon introduces the paramedics to Annie. They know her mother and Magda says Joe’s mother Rose was a good friend of Frances. As people leave and the body is removed, Annie sees a small green notebook. It is Frances’s journal from the 1960s. She pockets it and notices an oddly bad arrangement of flowers amongst many good ones. She looks closer and sees the roses have needles instead of thorns.

Annie finds Detective Rowan Crane. She shows him the roses while his office manager complains about Frances wasting police time and her rudeness toward the Crane family because of their bird-sounding last name. Annie’s hands begin to blister and she worries she’s touched the needles. Crane takes her to the doctor’s office down the street while Annie continues to tell him her theory that the roses were the murder weapon. He lets slip that Frances had a past with the vicar named John. Annie faints in Dr. Esi Owusu’s office, hearing the word “hemlock” as she blacks out (70).

In the past timeline, Emily seems familiar with Rutherford but introduces them all by name—except Frances who she simply calls “John’s girlfriend” (71). He asks them to stay in specific areas if they’re going to be on his land and to bring Saxon back to the house if they see him again. He singles out Frances and asks her name. He smiles charmingly and asks if she likes riddles. She gives him a smart answer and he laughs, telling her to call him Ford. He leaves with Saxon and Emily leads them to the Grecian ruin Ford mentions. John already appears to know the way. Emily makes Frances feel stupid by saying she knows Frances and John are going to sneak off to have sex and makes a crack at her virginity. John makes Frances feel better and they go off together, but Saxon again appears and spoils the mood. John is furious, and Frances takes a crying Saxon up to the manor house. When they get there, Saxon says his uncle Ford wants to speak with Frances.

In the present, Dr. Owusu assures Annie that hemlock isn’t deadly when touched and gives her cream. The doctor says she liked Frances despite her constant pestering about suspicious or perceived problems. She also reveals she, at Frances’s request, will do Frances’s autopsy and not Saxon. She thinks Annie should trust Detective Crane. Magda arrives for an appointment despite the doctor saying earlier that she doesn’t take appointments on Tuesdays. They go into the office and Annie looks in the appointment book where Magda is scheduled twice that day. She also sees her great-aunt had an appointment that morning. She wants to trust Dr. Owusu but takes a photo of the appointment book anyway. She now knows Frances saw four people the morning she died—Oliver, Archie who delivered flowers for Frances to arrange for the church, Magda, and Dr. Owusu. She realizes the person who gave Frances the roses would be hard to trace as they may have come at any time of day. They were ugly, however, and yet Frances didn’t throw them away. This makes Annie think the person who gave them meant something to Frances and also that the person knew Frances would try to rearrange them to look prettier and would stab herself.

In the past timeline, Frances follows Saxon inside where his uncle Ford serves tea and sits her across a chess board with Saxon. He tells Frances that her friends aren’t good enough for her. Saxon agrees. Frances realizes her friends have been going there without her. Ford hands her the queen chess piece and Frances feels her fortune fall into place. Ford tells her the first thing to know about chess is also a lesson about life: “You can play without a plan, but you’ll probably lose” (97).