How to Solve Your Own Murder

“Your future contains dry bones. Your slow demise begins right when you hold the queen in the palm of one hand. Beware the bird, for it will betray you. And from that, there’s no coming back. But daughters are the key to justice, find the right one and keep her close. All signs point toward your murder.”

Frances’s fortune rules the rest of her life, creating an ominous, obsessive tone that affects her personality and relationships. From this point forward, until her murder, Frances is trying to piece together everyone’s role in her demise. By presenting this riddle in the prologue, Perrin outlines the events of the book. The right daughter, Annie, will help bring justice, promising a solution to the crime. Therefore, the “why” and “how” becomes most important, as the major events are already determined.

“Everyone ignores Frances. She’s nutty. So much so that she’s a local legend—the weird old lady with a huge country house and piles of money, just digging up dirt on anyone who crosses her path in case they might turn out to be her murderer.”

Here Laura, Annie’s mom, sums up Frances from everyone’s point of view except Annie’s. Annie, once she gets to the estate, feels empathy with her aunt. Shared traits like their love of writing and solving mysteries make Annie relate to Frances and so again proves she is the right daughter spoken about in the fortune. This quote, however, shows what Frances has become in the eyes of the community, a contrast to what the first few entries in the journal so far imply. Seeing the difference between the older Frances’s reputation and the younger’s behavior creates a question for the novel to answer about what happened in order to change Frances’s personality so dramatically.