Review

Heidi is having a miserable time on exchange in Switzerland when her brother Felix dies. Feeling relieved (he was a lot older than her and a complete arsehole) at this excellent excuse to bail, she flies home to Perth, where she’s living with her aunt, Felix’s widow (Elena), and Patrick (Elena’s brother).

Hanging out with Patrick is far more fun than Europe or thinking about how her (now ex) best friend Lilia had been hooking up with her (now ex) boyfriend Ben behind her back. So when Patrick suggests that they investigate the slightly odd circumstances surrounding Felix’s death, she’s on board. And in any case, it’s the school holidays. What else has she got to do?

*

Another fabulous YA cosy crime page-turner from Emery (My Family and Other Suspects). Not only is the plotting painstakingly clever, but it is also laugh-out-loud funny, which is my absolute favourite thing. And there’s a tiny touch of romance.

It does, however, get off to a slightly slow start, due to a frame narrative in which Heidi is trapped in a lift with a claustrophobic woman and begins to tell her the story of the investigation to distract her. Most of the novel is set during Heidi’s investigation (chapters titled “Then”) with occasional very short chapters set in the lift (“Now”). There is a narrative payoff for all this, but impatient students might need a quick explainer about the beginning being set in a lift to stop them from putting the book down on page 2. The story proper kicks off on page 11, so if necessary, they could skip to that.

Once it got going, though, I was hooked. I read the whole thing in two days, flew through it in a lovely page-turning haze. At first I was just enjoying the humour, but then I became absolutely hooked on the mystery, which is full of fabulous clues, red herrings, motives, alibis and all the classic features of the genre. The planning that must go into these books.

I especially love Heidi’s first person narration, which is clever, funny, and sometimes tension-ratcheting:

• “‘What ‘orrible news,’ said my host sister when I told her my brother had died suddenly. ‘Does zis mean I can have my bedroom back?'”
• “‘I’m not sure you should have come back,’ Aunty Sam said at the airport, looking like Helena Bonham Carter caught in a windstorm”
• “But this is relevant stuff. Because the person responsible for my brother’s untimely death will be there. So pay attention.”
• “‘We won’t intrude,’ Lilia says quickly, smooth as anti-frizz serum.”
• “Aunty Sam and I didn’t exactly talk it out when Ben and Lilia simultaneously dumped me. The most she said was ‘This too shall pass,’ then handed me a book of Sylvia Plath poetry. I haven’t got around to reading that one, mostly because I’m not sure it’ll boost my mental health to take advice from someone who died with her head in the oven.”

I’ll be enthusiastically recommending this book for Year 7 & up. 385 pp.

(I’m no longer very interested in buying library books longer than 400 pages – they get ignored. Unless they’re the very latest, hottest BookTok thing.)

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Heidi is 15 & Patrick is 16; murder (off-page, but details/corpse briefly described); CPR on corpse; infidelity; financial and physical abuse; Heidi’s an orphan – both her parents died of cancer – and she lives with her aunt; some discussion of suicide as a possible verdict for Felix’s death, plus the odd jokey mention (se Sylvia Plath quote, above); some moral ambiguity in the ending, although reader will feel satisfied; friendship issues re: Heidi’s ex-friend & ex-boyfriend – Heidi is hurt, but it’s mostly depicted comedically; one minimally described kiss, Ben & Lilia vaguely described as secretly “hooking up”, a very brief & comedic mention of Ben having touched Heidi’s breasts in the past (“He’s touched my boobs and now we’re on shoulder-patting terms”, p.89); some swearing (f–, s–, d–, assorted others); most relationships are mlw, with one minor relationship mlm. Themes: importance of loving family relationships & female friendships.

*

Emery, K. (2025). A murder is going down. Allen & Unwin.

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I read this novel for free thanks to a school library — support your school library by visiting & borrowing!