BOOK REVIEW: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village (+ recommendations)
Title: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village
Authors: Maureen Johnson & Jay Cooper
Year: 2021
Rating: 4/5
As September draws to a close and October is in sight, spooky books will be at their peak popularity. Though not a fan of horror (except classics), I do appreciate murder mystery books. This is especially true if they are set in England/Ireland/Scotland (be still my heart!). Anyway, while browsing the library I found this funny book and thought it was the perfect transitional September-to-October book to share. Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village is a nonfiction book that exaggerates and pokes fun at the tropes of the murder mystery genre . The book is divided into 2 major sections, the village and the manor, and further divided into buildings, residents, and events. I found myself chuckling at many points and appreciated the wit inherent throughout. The introduction to buildings in the village immediately sets you up for the type of humor to expect: “English villages follow an ancient blueprint from a simpler time, when babies drank beer and everyone had a sheep. Time may march on elsewhere, but not in the village. They don’t like change in the village” (13). Though naturally dark in tone, it is never found without the humor. Some great quotes:
Village Shop- “It sells cheese, stamps, tea, and death” (16).
Manor Events- “The aristocracy have three passions: inbreeding, collecting stolen artifacts, and engaging in recreational violence” (114)
The Dinner Party: “For when you want to be murdered, but don’t have an entire weekend to spare.” (118)
The book also gives advice on how to, hopefully, stay alive. For example, “All messages in a Murder Village are bad news. It means someone Knows Something. Don’t leave messages. Don’t hang around people who do” (37). There is a whole section talking about why going to historical reenactments in the local village is a terrible idea-but also why not going to the reenactment can get killed (46-47).
These delightful pages are accompanied by black and white drawings (with a pop of red naturally), a mix of macabre and funny.
The ending of the village and manor sections include a little ‘choose your own adventure’ type thing to see if you could survive. I personally enjoyed this quick little read.
Before I let you go, I wanted to make a short recommendation list of cozy murder mystery series to check out (because this book will make you want to jump right into such a read):
-Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple series by Agatha Christie
-The Cottage Tales of Beatrix Potter series by Susan Wittig Albert
- Shady Hollow series by Juneau Black
-Knitting Mystery series by Maggie Sefton
-Vera Wong series by Jesse Q. Sutanto (the second one comes out next year!)
Do you enjoy cozy murder mysteries? Which is your favorite?
Happy Reading!
Lady Bookish
P.S. I am starting to read a series by an author (who is also a lovely subscriber) so keep an eye out for that in future posts!