Welcome to British Isles Friday! British Isles Friday is a weekly event for sharing all things British and Irish — reviews, photos, opinions, trip reports, guides, links, resources, personal stories, interviews, and research posts. Join us each Friday to link your British and Irish themed content and to see what others have to share. The link list is at the bottom of this post. Pour a cup of tea or lift a pint and join our link party!

Last week, I reviewed Dracula Daily, an email presentation of the original novel by Bram Stoker. Tina liked The Truth About Melody Browne by a favorite author, Lisa Jewell.

Book: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village by Maureen Johnson & Jay Cooper
Genre: Nonfiction, kinda
Publisher: Ten Speed Press
Publication date: 2021

Source: Hardback borrowed from the library

Summary: Any reader of mystery novels set in England will know that a peaceful village, where every resident is as charming as the cottage in which they dwell, may harbor a murderer. As the author puts it in “A Note to the Gentle Reader” at the beginning of Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village:

You will not know you are in a Murder Village, as they look like all other villages. When you arrive in Shrimpling or Pickles-in-the-Woods or Wombat-on-Sea or wherever it is, there will be no immediate signs of danger. This is exactly the problem. You are already in the trap. (p. 9)

Maureen Johnson, author of the Shades of London series and many other novels, wrote the text of Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village, highlighting village features, residents, and events. A second section covers the nearby manor house — since we all know that murders happen there, too.

The book is illustrated by Jay Cooper in black ink with splashes of blood red.

Thoughts: Your Guide to Not Getting Murdered in a Quaint English Village would have been appropriate to review during #RIPXVIII and I intended to do that. But, after I read it, I thought it would be the perfect gift book for any British mystery lover, so I saved it for the festive season as a Black Friday post.

Maureen Johnson is an American author, most known for her Young Adult novels like 13 Little Blue Envelopes and The Name of the Star. Her stories often include humor, so even though this is a completely different sort of book, it fits well with Johnson’s style.

This slim volume can be read in an hour, a bit longer if you linger over the witty illustrations. It’s an attractive object with decorated endpapers and interesting typography. This book would be a delight to unwrap during the holiday season. And then, to take a few minutes, now and then, in between social interactions to read a few of its pages.

Appeal: This work of satire will amuse anyone who ever enjoyed books by Arthur Conan Doyle or Agatha Christie or any of the many novelists inspired by them to set their murder mysteries in quaint English villages.

Have you read this book? What did you think?