More Than Murder is the first in a new “cosy crime” series from the Producer of BBC’s Silent Witness. It’s a story of two sisters who go to a murder mystery only to find out not all of the murders may have been acting.
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I was kindly sent a copy of this book in return for an honest review.
More Than Murder tells the story of two sisters who are brought back together after their mother dies and leaves them a cottage but with the agreement they must live together and whoever leaves first doesn’t get to keep the cottage. They both then go to a murder mystery event after winning it at a local raffle and quickly start to suspect that the murders at the murder mystery might not all be fake.
More Than Murder plot – 3.75/5
More Than Murder is deemed a “cosy crime” which I think means it entails a few things: a small English countryside town, no real sense of danger and an underlying tone of less-than-serious main characters.
I had a bit of an issue throughout where I felt confused as to which characters were part of the Murder Mystery, whether we were actually reading about a murder mystery performance or real-life conversations. Also, our main characters sneaking around and doing actual real-life research about the characters confused me tenfold. Surely all of the evidence you’d need in a murder mystery would be quite evident (no pun intended) to the players?
I liked the “cosy” element of the story, where it never really feels that serious and it never felt that tense. Yes, thrillers are great, but it’s also often nice to read something where you know there’s going to be some more killings but without feeling the thrill or tense moments that other books can give you.
More Than Murder characters – 4/5
At first I found the two sisters’ relationship really unengaging. There was a forced element of “oh we don’t like each other, but this whole event will make us like each other’ and that continued throughout most of the book until the latter stages where I did feel myself growing a little warmth towards the pair.
They both had very distinct personalities – one was cautious and took more time to think, while the other was more outgoing and brash with her decisions. A dynamic that ended up working well!
The rest of the cast all had relatively big personalities and fit into their roles well. None of them I would consider particularly outstanding but were good enough to fill the gap required of additional characters.
More Than Murder final rating – 3.75/5
More Than Murder is a fine cosy crime book. It has a nice English countryside setting, the fun idea of having a real murder happen during a murder mystery and features a cast of characters who’ll make you chuckle every now and then. However, its lack of length made me personally feel like it resulted in a lack of any real depth. It was enjoyable enough, but it took me way too long to enjoy it, and I feel like I only really found myself liking it once I’d finished it. If you like cosy crime books, this does intend to be a series so there’s more to come if you enjoy it!
