Review: The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant by Liza Tully

 

The World's Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant by Liza Tully

Publication Date: July 8th 2025 by Berkley

Pages: 400

Source: Publisher 

Rating: ★★★★½

Links: Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Kobo | Audible | Libro.fm | Goodreads

My Thoughts:

Olivia Blunt applied for a job as assistant to renowned detective Aubrey Merritt in hopes that she’ll get to help investigate cases. Instead, Olivia’s doing office work and research. This changes when they’re asked to look into the death of Victoria Summersworth. The police believe Victoria took her own life, but her daughter Haley believes she was murdered.  On paper it seems Victoria had everything going for her: wealth, a new romance and a loving family.

 

Olivia and Merritt travel to Vermont to sort it out and become embroiled in a web of family drama with a wealth of suspects.

 

We get the story from Olivia’s perspective and while she was the assistant and in training, she was pretty observant and smart.  She did have much to learn from Merritt who was like a cross between Hercule Poirot and Miranda Priestly, albeit a bit nicer. It was fun to see Olivia and Merritt work together. I enjoyed their methodical investigation as they question suspects, analyze the facts and mull over motives.

 

The World’s Greatest Detective and Her Just Okay Assistant was a fun sort of modern-day Agatha Christie with a bit of humor! I loved every page of this twisty, cozy mystery! I’m hoping we get more mysteries with this duo in the future!

4.5 Stars

Book Description:

A great detective's young assistant yearns for glory, but first they have learn to get along in this delightful feel good mystery.

Olivia Blunt doesn't want to be an assistant detective for the rest of her life. She's determined to learn everything she can from her mentor and renowned investigator, Aubrey Merritt, but the latter is no easy grader.

After weeks of fielding phone calls from parties desperate for the world-renowned detective’s help, a case comes across Olivia’s desk that just might be worthy of Merritt’s skills. On the evening of her sixty-fifth birthday party, Victoria Summersworth somehow fell over her balcony railing to her death on the rocky shore of Lake Champlain. She was a happy woman—rich, beloved, in love, and matriarch of the preeminent Summersworth family. The police have ruled it a suicide, but her daughter Haley thinks it was murder.

Merritt is ever the skeptic, but Olivia believes Haley. Plus, she’s desperate to prove her investigative skills to her aloof boss. But the Summersworth family drama is a complicated web.

Olivia realizes she might be in over her head with this whole detective thing... or she might be unravelling a mystery even bigger than the one she’d started with.

About the author:

Author Liza Tully is an alternate pen name for Elisabeth Elo (for dark thrillers) and Elisabeth Panttaja Brink (for literary fiction). Her novel North of Boston received glowing critical acclaim, a Book of the Month selection, and an Indie Next Pick. Finding Katarina M. was praised by Publishers Weekly as a “tense and illuminating journey [that] will enthrall readers.”