I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

14-year-old Ruth was expecting a few fights on her family's vacation at their remote farmhouse. But she wasn't expecting a murder. And "death by typewriter" wasn't quite how she thought her step-grandmother, GG, would meet her end.

As an avid reader of mystery novels, Ruth is more than a little excited to have a real mystery to solve. (Though she's sad about GG. Obviously.) And she's read enough Agatha Christie that catching a killer should be a breeze... right?

With her annoyingly hot sort-of-cousin, Dylan, as the Watson to her Holmes, Ruth soon begins to uncover long-buried family secrets, finding that each of her relatives--her dad; her aunts and their partners; even, in the interest of fairness, Dylan and herself--had reasons to want GG gone.

But are any of them capable of murder? As tensions rise with everyone stuck in the house together, Ruth will have to dig deep to find out... before the killer strikes again.

Short and Sweet Review

Ruth is with her family for a little vacation at their remote farmhouse, she was expecting a few fights but not a murder, especially a death by typewriter. When GG, Ruth’s step-grandmother is found dead the next morning it really isn’t seen as the biggest deal as she was a bit older but the police decide to investigate and so does Ruth. Ruth loves Agatha Christie mysteries and she’s excited to finally put her sleuthing skills to use and she has her sort of cousin Dylan to help.

I will start off by saying this family is dysfunctional, we have Ruth our main character, her dad, and her two aunts and her cousin Dylan. They’re all at this remote farmhouse for a vacation which is short lived especially after GG’s death. The family has to stay for a few more days because of the police investigation and Ruth decides to pitch in. When I started this book I didn’t remember anything about the synopsis so I was surprised she was only 14 and I do think this book toes the line between middle grade and Young adult. There”s just a lot of chaos going on surrounding family dynamics, and accidents that occur but it was interesting to see how everything played out. Ruth is young so a lot of the mystery was central to the farmhouse and we did see her learn things that help move the mystery along. I do think the relationship between Ruth and Dylan was kind of weird but it depends on how you view it. Most of the plot twists were predictable and I just think this could be better off marketed for a middle school audience.

Overall, this was an okay book, the mystery was interesting but in the end it all felt to easy especially the end result.