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
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.”
