Mystery Archives — Keeping Up With The Penguins

Burial Rites – Hannah Kent

October 6, 2026 / Sheree / 0 Comments

It can be tough to write fiction about real people and events – especially when the events in question occurred centuries ago, the people involved are long dead, and contemporaneous records are relatively limited. Hannah Kent really shot for the stars with her debut novel, Burial Rites, a historical crime drama set in Northern Iceland in 1929, based on the real execution of the convicted murderess Agnes Magnúsdóttir.

In both the book and real life, Agnes was condemned to death as an accessory to the murder of two men. Agnes was a housemaid, and one of the victims was her ‘master’ (the other being his houseguest). While she awaited execution, she was sent to live and work on the family farm of a District Officer – an informal ‘custodial holding’ arrangement for various bureaucratic reasons – and placed in the care of a young reverend.

All of this is firmly established in the historical record, and Kent uses that as the starting point around which she builds Burial Rites. She says in her author’s note that she wanted to portray Agnes more ambiguously than other historical records have done. Agnes is widely depicted as a Lady Macbeth-type figure, with a reputation for (as Kent herself puts it in Burial Rites) “a sharp tongue and loose skirts”, but Kent’s depiction delves more deeply into what could have possibly motivated her crimes – and, as such, engenders more sympathy.

Agnes’s story is revealed very gradually over the course of the novel (so gradually, in fact, that I often lost track of who was what to whom and where they were headed). She was hired along with another (much younger, and dumber) housekeeper to work for Natan Ketilsson, and eventually the two women conspired with Natan’s neighbour Friðrik Sigurðsson to rob and murder him, afterwards setting fire to his house in an ultimately futile effort to conceal their crimes. Of course, Kent encourages us to read between the lines of how and why this set of circumstances played out.

While Burial Rites moves slowly – undoubtedly too slowly for many readers’ tastes – and hopscotches across perspectives, I was impressed by Kent’s careful use of detail in depicting the characters. The example that sticks in my mind is the District Commissioner (the District Officer’s boss). He is described as being ‘repelled’ by the Icelandic peasants’ ‘hovels’, and he insists on his full title being used in conversation – immediately giving the distinct impression that he is a self-important arsehole.

That attention to detail expands beyond the characters, too, to the rhythms and realities of farm life across the seasons in 19th century Iceland. The prioritisation of food and warmth, the rigors of the seasonal workload, and the isolation and insularity of the region are all driving forces in Burial Rites. Kent also uses these tangible details to imply commentary about class and wealth disparity, and the roles of women as both caretakers and scapegoats, without needing to hammer the reader over the head.

(There’s also quite a bit of animal slaughter, and one brief mention of an awful dog death, as well as the eventual reveal of the gruesome human murders – so beware if you’re particularly sensitive to any of that.)

Burial Rites is an intense read, and I’d imagine that its gradual pace and heavy reliance on Icelandic phrases and saga stories will be off-putting to some readers – but if you enjoyed Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, you’re in for a treat with this one.

Read Burial Rites on audiobook via Libro.fm here.

My favourite Amazon reviews of Burial Rites:

“Perhaps the sources Kent used mentioned the affairs between characters and the hinted-at attraction between the priest and the condemned, but all the sex seemed trite in a world where people might not survive a snowstorm.” – Momof4girls
“frankly, I’d rather have been beheaded than read another page.” – L Bellamy
“Schadenfreudeans rejoice – this one’s for you!” – The archaeologist
“Burial Rites reaks of stink, blood, and death. The pace is that of slow hot piss.” – Desert Studio Art Co.

Death In Her Hands – Ottessa Moshfegh

August 11, 2026 / Sheree / 0 Comments

You might have missed Death In Her Hands when it first came out, given that it was mid-2020 when we were all frantically scrubbing our hands to the tune of Happy Birthday and stockpiling toilet paper – but don’t let it pass you by completely. Luckily, I have a finely tuned radar set to ping whenever Ottessa Moshfegh releases a new book, so I snatched up a copy, and got around to reading it just six years later.

Death In Her Hands has a killer opening line:

Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here is her dead body.
Death In Her Hands (Page 1)

These words are found, written neatly on a piece of note paper, by a 72 year old woman out walking her dog. The thing is, there’s no body. Magda is nowhere in evidence. There’s no blood or weapon or sign of a struggle – just the note, on the ground, weighed down by some rocks.

The woman who discovers the note is Vesta. She is relatively-recently and mostly-happily widowed. She moved to this small town in the woods after her husband’s death – she knows no one, and she has very little company, besides her dog Charlie. The discovery of this note is the closest thing she’s had to a social interaction in months.

With little else to occupy her mind, Vesta becomes fixated on the note. She begins to imagine a whole life for Magda, and then the murderer, and then the note-leaver. Soon, it’s more than an idle fantasy – it tips over the edge into a true obsession. She visits the library and Asks Jeeves how to solve a murder. She closely observes everyone around her. Soon, everything she sees becomes a clue.

Death In Her Hands is a very interior novel, with an extremely unreliable narrator. How much of what Vesta sees, hears, and thinks is real? How much is imagined, as a result of loneliness, grief, or even dementia? Moshfegh is a truly remarkable writer, and she refuses to make it easy for the reader in this send-up of the detective novel. Death In Her Hands is less of a whodunnit and more of a diditreallyhappen.

It would have been an easy five-star read for me, except that towards the end, Charlie goes missing and (gulp) meets a truly horrific fate – dog-lovers, be warned. For my own sanity, I choose to believe that what happens on the page is imagined by Vesta entirely, and that Charlie is ‘really’ living a long and happy life in the woods where there’s lots of sticks to play with. Aside from this deeply traumatic chapter, Death In Her Hands is a practically perfect novel.

Read Death In Her Hands on audiobook via Libro.fm here.

My favourite Amazon reviews of Death In Her Hands:

“in chapter two there is this exaggerated description of a fat woman eating donuts that is so unrealistic and fatphobic that I am not going to continue to read. Eat crumbs, Otessa.” – praiselemonade
“Meandering, trivial nothingness. you really get the feeling Ottessa didn’t really know what story she wanted to write after the success of her previous book but said “you know what, maybe I don’t know have to know! This is MY year of rest and relaxation!” and just made it up as she went along.” – maxxism
“This is navel gazing of the highest order, that combines deep bigotry with animal cruelty without a coherent plot line.” – Anonymous Reader
“The main character is a pretentious old woman. I was getting angrier and angrier with her. I just honestly did not like her. But I decided to stick with it. I kept telling myself, “oh, she’s pure malice, but she’s not as bad as my MIL”.” – Kindle Customer
“This book made me wish I was illiterate! I’ve never disrespected a book in my life but I’m going to douse this one with petrol and set it alight in the forest. I’m just glad I didn’t download it to my iPad because I’d have to find a way to burn an iPad.” – Carie Craze

The Murder Rule – Dervla McTiernan

July 14, 2026 / Sheree / 0 Comments

If you’ve watched any Netflix true crime documentaries in the past decade or so, you’re familiar with the various Innocence Projects around the world. These teams of attorneys (and attorneys-in-training) dedicate months, even years, to exonerating people who have been convicted of crimes they didn’t commit. Dervla McTiernan has turned this into a brilliant conceit for a mystery-thriller novel, The Murder Rule: what if someone on the team actually wants the criminal to stay behind bars?

The story is primarily set in Virginia, in 2019. Hannah is a law student, and in the opening pages she blackmails her way into a coveted volunteer role at the UVA Innocence Project. McTiernan doesn’t hide the fact that Hannah has ulterior motives. From the very start, we know she’s not in it just for glory – there’s a particular case she wants to dismantle from the inside, and a man she wants to keep behind bars.

The case is that of Michael Dandridge, a man who was sentenced to life in prison for the rape and murder of a young mother as her children slept in the next room. He’s been locked up for over a decade, and with questions being raised about the validity of the evidence used to convict him, prosecutors have elected to re-try his case. The Innocence Project team – student volunteers Camilla, Sean, and (now) Hannah, led by project director Robert Parekh – scramble to prepare for the preliminary hearing. Hannah is cunning and wily, and she has her eyes and ears open for any opportunity to sabotage the defence.

Hannah’s story alternates with chapters styled as diary entries written by her mother, Laura, dated 1994. Laura’s story gradually reveals why Hannah is so determined to keep Dandridge in prison – and why she has ended up effectively parenting her alcoholic mother in the present.

The Murder Rule is a great mix of psychological thriller, legal procedural, and murder mystery. There are a lot of elements at play, and plenty of twists (some you’ll see coming a mile off, some will surprise you). As the tagline on the cover promises: no one is innocent in this story.

I had a couple of minor problems with it, though they didn’t detract much from the story as a whole for me. First off, I’m not sure third-year law students would need all the for-dummies explanations of courtroom procedure and evidence rules that Parekh provides; it’s a slightly clumsy way of giving the reader the information they need to understand the stakes. And secondly, the characters (slash suspects) and their motivations and relationships get a little murky as The Murder Rule builds towards its climax. McTiernan thankfully straightens it all out with a Legally Blonde-esque courtroom showdown.

Ultimately, The Murder Rule is a book about confirmation bias, and how we keep believing the stories we tell ourselves. I’ll definitely be on the lookout for more books by McTiernan if they’re all up to this standard.

Read The Murder Rule on audiobook via Libro.fm here.

My favourite Amazon reviews of The Murder Rule:

“If you really want to prove the man of murder, why is she part of the group that is trying to set him free??? Why not join the people that are trying to keep him in prison???” – Ivy
“Be prepared not only to suspend disbelief, but to ignore all rational thought.” – Amazon Customer
“It’s not a book that gives you anything to think about after you finish it. It’s basically chewing gum for the mind.” – Hey There Delilah

How To Kill Your Family – Bella Mackie

May 5, 2026 / Sheree / 1 Comment

How To Kill Your Family has the perfect tagline: “They say you can’t choose your family… but you can kill them.” Yes, it’s another novel with a title that might raise a few eyebrows, but the delightfully dark contents don’t disappoint.

The story is narrated from Limehouse Prison by Grace Bernard, the “Morton Murderer”. She’s been convicted of a murder she didn’t commit, but – as her hand-written prison memoir reveals – she got away with several more that she most certainly did.

She’s been planning these murders since she was a teenager, in the hopes of avenging her mother (who died when Grace was 13). Grace is the illegitimate love child of a ridiculously wealthy businessman who has refused to contribute to her upbringing – or even acknowledge her existence. In fact, his whole family disavowed her and her mother, leaving them to live in relative poverty while they enjoyed mansions and yachts and holidays in Spain. So, Grace dispatches them, one by one, leaving her father for last to really maximise his suffering.

She executes these murders carefully, spacing them out and varying the means enough to avoid suspicion – they look more like a run of bad luck for the family more than a targeted vengeance plot. She describes her crimes in great detail, explaining to the reader exactly how she lined up the dominoes to fall just as she’d planned – so, how did she wind up in prison, wrongfully convicted no less?

Needless to say, Grace is hilariously dark and bitter. She’s no Lady Macbeth, driven mad by guilt and grief – she’s calm, cool, and collected the whole way through. This makes How To Kill Your Family a highly entertaining read. You’ve got to admire a woman who can anonymously manipulate a teenage boy into hacking her father’s smart house to kill his wife by overheating the sauna, and make you laugh while describing in great detail how she did it.

Of course, it helps that there is a deeply satisfying schadenfreude in watching the overly privileged upper echelons get what’s coming to them, taken down by an amateur vigilante with very little to lose. Sure, it’s a bit gruesome, but the wry tone (and the jaw-dropping lack of self-awareness on Grace’s part) make it not just palatable, but delectable. Grace is snarky and sardonic and clever enough to get away with murder, but has absolutely no idea that she wields the kind of privilege and snobbery she rails against.

There’s a strange (and, I’ll admit, pretty unexpected) left turn in the final chapters of How To Kill Your Family, but I think it helps Mackie wrap up the story in a way that feels satisfying… ish. There’s a point to it, I guess, is what I’m saying. Plus, on reflection I realised there are subtle hints to it early on, if you know to look for them – always the sign of a clever mystery. I highly recommend How To Kill Your Family if you’re feeling some rage and you want to live vicariously through a killer who finds the most outrageous ways possible to blow off steam.

Read How To Kill Your Family on audiobook via Libro.fm here.

My favourite Amazon reviews of How To Kill Your Family:

“Honestly, if I’m going to spend time with awful people, I prefer it to be irl… I’d recommend skipping this one unless you love stories populated by irritating people you’d kinda like to trip while walking done a flight of stairs.” FanGirl
“Way too much self-reflection by the main character.” – Jeff
“I raised my daughter as a single Mom. There is no way she would have killed her father, his three wives and her 9 living half-siblings. Not that her father was rich far from it.” – Rebecka Vigus
“allegedly there’s a 2 book deal and I can only hope the second is a sequel to this. As it is, this book leaves you frustrated like good sex that abruptly ends with you getting kicked unceremoniously out of bed sans orgasm. Can’t in good conscience recommend this unfulfilling experience.” – Blair
“The main character would not shut up. Just trauma-dumping and over-explaining every irrelevant detail like we asked. Babes, I don’t need to know what the wallpaper looked like in 4K.” – Kate

Call Me Evie – J.P. Pomare

April 28, 2026 / Sheree / 0 Comments

Call Me Evie comes recommended “for fans of Room by Emma Donoghue, and Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn“. Across two different settings (“Before” in Melbourne, Australia, and “After” in a coastal small town in New Zealand), the story follows a seventeen-year-old girl trying to piece together her memories of what happened the night everything changed.

In the “After”, a man who the narrator calls Jim has shaved her head, and taken photographs of her in her underwear. He tells her that he is protecting her from herself. He won’t let her go out alone, he keeps her away from any device that might connect to the internet, and he locks her in her bedroom for extended periods. When they’re in public, he calls her Evie.

In the “Before”, her name was Kate. She was a fairly normal seventeen-year-old girl (albeit one with a dead mother and a father who is a semi-famous retired footballer). She had a troublemaker best friend and a crush on a boy called Thom. But some kind of incident occurred that led this man – Jim – to take her across the ocean and obscure her identity.

It’s never quite clear just how much “Evie” remembers about the incident that “Kate” was involved in. Sometimes, she seems quite sure about her vague recollections. Other times, she’s not sure she can remember anything at all. She finds pop psychology books in Jim’s bedroom, with passages underlined about implanting false memories, so she has good reason not to trust her own mind – and, obviously, excellent reason not to trust Jim. Still, she’s unwavering in her desire to escape, and she wants to go home.

The pacing of Call Me Evie is pretty uneven. The mystery is tantalising, but the first half felt quite slow, with just the tiniest drops of plot development here and there – before a veritable flood of information in the second half.

The ‘unreliable narrator’ bit is also somewhat clumsily done, especially in comparison to the recommended equivalent titles (Room and Sharp Objects). The revelations of what each character knows, and how they acted in the aftermath of the incident (not to mention the incident itself), feel inconsistent and slapped together. I suspect the root of this problem is in the characters themselves; they simply aren’t developed enough for the emotional truth of their motivations to be clear for the reader, which makes it difficult to empathise or understand.

The premise of Call Me Evie is a great one – but I feel like Pomare had the idea and then went in search of a plot that he had to backwards engineer to fit, with characters drawn purely in service of the ‘reveal’. That said, I think it would adapt well for the screen; I can definitely see it as an eight-part mini-series for the ABC.

Read Call Me Evie on audiobook via Libro.fm here.