How to Cheat Your Own Death (Castle Knoll Files)
The third installment in the delightful Castle Knoll Files mystery series is a perfectly matched pair of intertwining tales, sending Annie Adams to London to visit her mother Laura, a renowned artist. Annie arrives to find Laura’s new assistant Felicity murdered in a way that shockingly echoes a killing that Annie’s Aunt Frances had recounted in her diary, decades before.
Suspecting a connection, Annie follows the breadcrumbs back in time, and the story begins to alternate between the present-day investigation and 1968. There, we encounter the young Aunt Frances, newly befriended by socialite Vera Huntington. Frances is swept up in Vera’s society whirlwind, drawing the enmity of Vera’s vindictive brother as she becomes entangled in family feuds and the murky machinations of the art world. When Vera is found murdered, with her heart surgically removed, Frances vows to track down the killer. Her investigation runs parallel to Annie’s, over half a century later, as long-buried truths and long-running deceptions are finally brought to light.
This is a wonderful two-timeline mystery—especially for readers who don’t like two-timeline mysteries—because it expertly pulls the two sides of the story together as neatly as the teeth of a zipper. The pacing is pitch-perfect, with each chapter answering questions posed in the alternating timeline. The appealing characters are easy to spend time with as How to Cheat Your Own Death dishes up plenty of twists and potential suspects, with clues along the way that cleverly mislead, but ultimately propel readers toward the surprising, but satisfying, conclusion. Highly recommended.
