What Rhymes With Murder?

Frida and Ben have a six month old son, Finn, who they both love dearly. But Frida has trouble adapting to motherhood and is constantly afraid that something might happen to Finn. She sees a psychiatrist regularly and knows that she must make an effort to leave the house and explore the outside world again with her son. However it is not easy.

Then she decides to attend the Baby Rhyme Time session with Finn at their local library. Finn appears to be enjoying the session and Frida begins to relax and chats to some of the parents until there is a scream and a body is discovered in the library. Things like this should not happen in suburban East Melbourne. When Frida tries to work out what actually happened she discovers that a number of other library users also have opinions about how Beatrice died.

What Rhymes With Murder by Penny Tangey is primarily an amusing cosy crime novel that also has a serious side as it also touches on themes of abortion, post-partum depression, anxiety and women’s rights.  The novel follows the attempts of an eclectic collection of amateur sleuths as they investigate the cause of how and why a body landed on the floor of the library. Eventually they join forces in their investigation and, as well as discovering what happens, new friendships are formed.

What Rhymes With Murder is an easy to read crime novel which includes references to parts of East Melbourne that will be familiar to many readers. I suspect that there may be sequels to this book in the future.