Mindful of Murder, by Susan Juby. Pub 2022

I was drawn to this book on the recommendation of a friend, who knows the author. I was promised a light and engaging murder mystery, and this delivered.

Set primarily at the Yatra Institute, a meditation centre and lodge on a remote island in BC, we follow Helen and her colleagues, all recent graduates of a butler training program. Helen is an expert in meditation and mindful, having been previously a Buddhist nun and then the manager of the Yatra before her butler training. The owner of the Yatra is found dead, and although her death is ruled a suicide, there are signs of something suspicious. Enter all her strange grand-relatives, who must pass a rite a passage at the Yatra under Helen’s supervision in order to inherit the lodge. With the help of her fellow butlers, Helen must solve the mystery before more people die…

The setting and characters are novel in this novel. The meditation and other mindfulness exercises that the relatives must experience/endure are fascinating, and the remote setting create a neat bubble in which the events move forward. There were a few editorial problems in the novel (a character says they will wait to do something, and then they do it immediately), but other than distracting these were not confusing to the story. The resolution was well done (but I had figured out the murderer many chapters earlier, so not that big a reveal) and the characters are well set-up for future stories (indeed, I’ve learned there are two more in this series).

While not deep or thought provoking, the book was enjoyable. I will read others by this author.

Fate: little book library (I won’t read this one again).

1 – murder
8 – female author
13 – never been
25 – new author
33 – Canadian