How to Cheat Your Own Death (Castle Knoll Files #3)
By: Kristen Perrin
My Rating: Four out of Five Stars
Best For: 16 and up

How to Cheat Your Own Death: A Debut Series That Just Keeps Getting Better

Kristen Perrin is back with the third installment of the Castle Knoll Murder Mystery series, and she’s getting better and better! I’m happy for a new author seeing success. Perrin is nailing it, and I’m already looking forward to book 4!

This time, the story leaves the village of Castle Knoll behind for the streets of London, again weaving together two interlocking mysteries decades apart. In the present day, Annie Adams heads to town to check on her famous artist mother, Laura, only to immediately stumble onto a corpse. It’s Laura’s new protégée. In the dumpster (apparently “skip” if you’re a Brit). With a hole in her chest where her heart should have been.

If that gruesome calling card sounds familiar to Annie, it’s because she’s read about it before. Once again, flipping through the 1968 journals of her late great-aunt Frances, Annie discovers that Frances’s impossibly glamorous socialite friend, Vera Huntington, was murdered in the exact same way amidst the smoky jazz clubs of Swinging Sixties Soho.

And now, we have our mystery.

I enjoyed this book so much! The dual-timeline structure works like magic here, moving seamlessly between the high-society drama of the 1960s and Annie’s frantic present-day investigation. What really kept me hooked, though, was the slow-burn relationship building. The “will-they-wont-they” dynamic between Annie and Detective Rowan Crane hits a whole new level of drama in this book, and I am fully rooting for these two.

Perrin knows exactly how to drop hints and plant clever clues without making you feel cheated, keeping you guessing right up until the final pages. Plus, this is the first book in the series to drop a clear, tantalizing hint about where the future is going, and it left me genuinely excited for book four.

Content Guide for Parents & Discerning Readers:

Age Recommendation: 16+ (Due to the graphic nature of the crime).

Language: Mild.

Violence: Moderate. There is a hole where a heart should be, after all.

Sexual Content: None. The romance is strictly kept to slow-burn tension and emotional drama.

Thematic Intensity: Moderate. Focuses on family dysfunction, long-buried secrets, and the high-pressure race to protect mom from a murderer.

The Verdict:

4 Stars. Delightfully twisty and fast-paced. If you love a generational mystery that blends historical glamour with modern suspense—and features a (very) slow burn romance that is absolutely worth the wait—you need to pick up this series. It’s officially hitting its stride.

Happy Reading!