She Treads Softly: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

Monday, August 23, 2021

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson and Jay Cooper
9/14/21; 128 pages
Ten Speed Press

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson and illustrated by Jay Cooper is a very highly recommended, hilarious guide that would make a perfect gift for anyone who enjoys British mysteries, especially cozy mysteries.

As a cozy mystery lover, you are finally taking that long awaited trip to England and look forward to seeing the quaint villages you have read about for years. There are some important things to consider and thankfully there is this guide to help you decide and plan your course of action. As Johnson points out in the introduction, "It is possible that you will find yourself in a placid and tedious little corner of England; it is just as possible that you will end up in an English Murder Village." You won't know if it is a murder village until it is too late, and that is precisely where this handy illustrated guide will help you find your way through the traps that await you at every turn and hopefully keep you alive. For example "The Village Shop: It sells cheese, stamps, and death." The author warns you that the best course of action is to stay in the urban areas, stay out of the countryside and continue on with your life.But if you decide to venture forth, hopefully the guide will help you survive.

This entertaining, hilarious guide is full of allusions to classic literary crime scenes and British lore. Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village opens with a note to the reader and then is divided into two sections with specifics following. The first section is The Village, which covers: Building & Spaces; Residents; Events, and a Quiz over details. The second section is The Manor, followed by sections on: Buildings & Spaces; Rooms & Architecture; furnishings & features; Residents; Frequent Guests; staff; events; and a Quiz section. Alas, based on my performance on the quizzes, my chance of survival is under fifty percent.

Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village will make a perfect, funny gift to give to all those British mystery lovers in your life.

Disclosure: My review copy was courtesy of Ten Speed Press via NetGalley.

No comments:

Post a Comment

John Updike's six rules for reviewing:

1. Try to understand what the author wished to do, and do not blame him for not achieving what he did not attempt.

2. Give him enough direct quotation--at least one extended passage--of the book's prose so the review's reader can form his own impression, can get his own taste.

3. Confirm your description of the book with quotation from the book, if only phrase-long, rather than proceeding by fuzzy precis.

4. Go easy on plot summary, and do not give away the ending.

5. If the book is judged deficient, cite a successful example along the same lines, from the author's oeuvre or elsewhere. Try to understand the failure. Sure it's his and not yours?

To these concrete five might be added a vaguer sixth, having to do with maintaining a chemical purity in the reaction between product and appraiser.....Review the book, not the reputation.... Better to praise and share than blame and ban. The communion between reviewer and his public is based upon the presumption of certain possible joys in reading, and all our discriminations should curve toward that end.