My daughter has currently developed a liking for classic whodunnits so this was a timely book to appear on the horizon.

This is a country house murder mystery in the Agatha Christie mold. Our narrator, Ursula Smart (not her real name) gate-crashes her mother’s book club at an isolated country house for a long weekend retreat. Much to Mother’s chagrin. Joining them are Mother’s best friend, Mirabelle, Aunts Charlotte and Less, and Bridget with her dog Mr Bojangles. A couple of members of staff, the Angels, who do little to take the chill off the atmosphere; an atmosphere that gets worse as deaths begin to occur.

There is lot to enjoy in this book, especially the humour. The fact the book club has read Gone Girl three times this year already; the repeated joke of characters shutting down the character of Bridget any time she want to discuss 'the book' (we never find out what this book is); and also witty lines such as: "Aunt Charlotte has always had a taste for the dramatic. Mother puts it down to her being dropped on her head as a baby. Mother did the dropping of course." Indeed, the book gets off the rollicking and very funny start, but is then let down a bit by a slightly baggy and draggy middle third that is less snappy and page turning, and often fells like it is treading water. It does just about recover at the end, whilst never quite recapturing the excellence of its beginnings.

That said, overall I found the Smart Woman's Guide to Murder an enjoyable read, with enough in it too make me mark Victoria Dowd as one to watch for the future, and to look forward the next book: The Smart Woman's Guide to Survival.

I received an ARC from Netgalley for review.

A nice take on the classic murder mystery in a country house.
Amusing,especially when Ursula is talking about anything to do with her mother.
Good escapism for a few hours.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for this review copy. Had high expectations for this novel after reading the synopsis but it was not met. It is an adequate thriller but lacks sophisticated. Characters are not fully developed and the imagery tries to be clever, but as we see from the first page, is often contrived e.g “violet snow”; “black twigs of the tree clawed the sky.” This was a shame as there was potential here but it needed a firmer hand during the editing process.

I will be editing this review later on, but as of right now it was a good story plot. A little confusing at times with the main character and her “spells”

I had high hopes as I love closed room mysteries but this fell really flat for me. Partially it was due to the writing style, there was a lot of facts that were repeated over and over again. Also, I'm not one who needs to like the characters but almost everyone was so rude to each other, it just wasn't very pleasant to read.

What a quirky, fun take on the traditional English Country House murder mystery! There's a wonderfully wacky cast of characters with differing ideas as to how a book club should be run. The nature steps in, and the guests are snowed in. One-by-one, murders begin. Is there a single killer that's hunting them all? Or is one of the book club members on a killing spree?

I found this to be charming, authentically golden age era style murder mystery, yet set in present day. I was delighted by this book and found myself laughing aloud at parts while simultaneously trying to figure out whodunit. I thoroughly recommend this book.

I would like to thank Victoria Dowd, Joffee Books and netgalley for the opportunity to read this book and exchange for a fair and honest review.

I would like to thank netgalley and the publisher for an advance copy in exchange for an honest review. I will admit reading the synopsis caught my eye right away, and while it was an interesting read, it didn’t fully catch my attention like I thought it would. Interested to see what she comes up with next though