Murder in Downfell Manor

Mystery with a Little Magical Chalk Dust

This book is certainly not what I expected it would be. From the blurb, I thought that it would take place at least in part at a magical academy where the female protagonist was failing out. But most of the blurb is actually backstory for what the real story is. While the book had magical elements and was grounded in a magical world, it is written in a straight-up fashion. It reads more like a traditional fugative mystery that just happens to have characters like mages and elves who are involved in the murder plot. The books have some issues with grammar, punctuation, and usage, and this was a little distracting at times. I’m wondering on the national origin of the author because some of the words were definitely strange, and when I looked them up, and they seem to be of either South African or Australian etymology. I typically enjoy paranormal mysteries very much, but this seemed to be just a straight-up whodunit with magical chalk dust.