{"id":236,"date":"2020-08-15T20:34:11","date_gmt":"2020-08-16T00:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/samiamreadingandreviewing.wordpress.com\/?p=236"},"modified":"2025-06-24T21:04:02","modified_gmt":"2025-06-24T21:04:02","slug":"rules-of-murder-julianna-deering","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/?p=236","title":{"rendered":"Rules of Murder – Julianna Deering"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Rules of Murder <\/em>by Juliana Deering introduces readers to Drew Farthering, an upper-class owner of a oil-processing plant in the 1930\u2019s. He\u2019s just come home from the Italian Riviera, and is looking forward to spending some time with his stepfather, mother, and learning the family business. However, he doesn\u2019t really get the chance as during a party, he and a guest, Madeline, find a body in the greenhouse. Soon, more bodies turn up, and he, his friend Nick, and Madeline aid the police in stopping the killer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I thought that this book was well-done for a debut novel; the plot was pretty solid and thoroughly confused me, although there were a couple of elements that I guessed. I don\u2019t feel like the book was laid out all that well, though, as there were some areas where Deering was trying to imply something and it didn\u2019t quite come across.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also thought Drew\u2019s attitude throughout this book was kind of flippant, and I wouldn\u2019t have expected or wanted it to be, especially with the murders and events hitting close to home. Throughout the book, he was comparing \u201chis\u201d mystery to a fictional tale, using Father Knox\u2019s rules to writing fiction as a guide (if you\u2019d like those rules, use this link: http:\/\/www.speedcitysistersincrime.org\/father-knoxs-decalogue.html<\/span>). That just seemed inappropriate, as the murders were inordinately close to him, yet he was almost jovial at times. He was also flirting, joking, and teasing Madeline the whole time, which didn\u2019t compute with me. Not that there can\u2019t be levity in a murder mystery novel; Drew\u2019s just seemed ill-timed and poorly thought out for the situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nick was no better as he was always cracking jokes and thinking about the women of the town. Drew did split his time between Madeline and solving the murder pretty well, but I cannot understand how they fell in love within 11 days of meeting each other. I felt their courtship could have stretched further and could have been more realistic. In fact, I think the book would have sat better with me if their courtship had occurred over several books; I would have been able to see Drew as more of a person rather than the perfect picture of English hospitality that he is. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Madeline seemed to be the only sensible one of the bunch; she kept Drew at bay for as long as she could to see if her feelings were real, she spent a long time mourning the murder victims even though she didn\u2019t know them very well, and she was able to go from being flirtatious to serious about the case without an awkward transition. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I am very curious as to what the next book will be like now that I\u2019ve gotten to know the characters a bit. I will be reading the second book, although I have mixed feelings about this one – but, you never know, maybe the second time’s the charm. I think the main hangup is that this book just didn\u2019t feel very realistic to me, or at least it didn\u2019t leave me imagining that the events could have really happened. Drew and his crew may appeal more to me as I get to know them better, so I will press on!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rules of Murder by Juliana Deering introduces readers to Drew Farthering, an upper-class owner of a oil-processing plant in the 1930\u2019s. He\u2019s just come home from the Italian Riviera, and is looking forward to spending some time with his stepfather, mother, and learning the family business. However, he doesn\u2019t really get the chance as duringContinue reading “Rules of Murder – Julianna Deering”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":238,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[52,114,124,165,204,280,285,349,360],"class_list":["post-236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-book-review","tag-drew-farthering-mysteries","tag-english-village","tag-historical-mystery","tag-julianna-deering","tag-murder-in-english-village","tag-murdery-mystery","tag-romance","tag-rules-of-murder","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/08\/img_20200514_143241793-scaled.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":657,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions\/657"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/238"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/samiamreading.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}