Breakaway Books

Authored by Katarina Bivald; Published August 2024; Mystery

⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

I am a shamelessly enthusiastic fan of the TV show Castle. Sure, Nathan Fillion’s charm did most of the heavy lifting, but it was still entertaining to watch an author try to solve murders. There is that same potential for entertainment in The Murders in Great Diddling.

In the novel, author Berit Gardner has moved to Great Diddling to regain her inspiration and pen her next book. But she finds herself stymied until a simultaneously fortuitous and unfortunate tea party that ends in murder. Unable to stop herself, Berit dives into the village’s tensions, trying to uncover the true perpetrator. While Berit had her charming moments chasing down the murderer, and there are certainly plenty of quirky characters in Great Diddling, this novel didn’t have quite the magnetism that I hoped it would.

A surprising amount of this novel centers on an almost obsessive love of books. To me, of course, this was massively appealing: the estate with a library full of signed first editions, the book fair scheduled with silent reading time for all participants, the transformation of every store on Main Street into a bookstore. All of the book-related love gave me great joy—but the characters themselves left something to be desired.

Perhaps, for once, I was far too sympathetic with the police. DCI Ahmed is called to solve the tea party murder and comes off as a devoted public servant, and I loved the idea of a type of partnership between him and Berit, but ultimately, Berit proves too devoted to the townspeople for such a relationship. The townspeople, for their part, universally seem to regard truth as a completely flexible concept, feeling little to no guilt at telling blatant lies and rarely facing the consequences.

Lying for a noble purpose is one thing, but frankly, Great Diddling was chock full of con artists, and I could not sympathize with them. Their lies seem to be as much about making money as protecting themselves. Between the less than likable cast of characters and not quite enough suspense to keep me at the edge of my seat, I found myself struggling to get to the end.

The Murders in Great Diddling would be a treat for the ultimate book lover looking for a cozy mystery—as long as they’re willing to suspend any aversion to dishonesty.