Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐

“Calm your mind. Take a breath. And kill.“

Everything about this book piqued my interest when I first heard about it! I’m not sure it’ll leave my brain in a hurry! Achieving a better work-life balance is a goal for many of us, but when Björn’s journey begins and he learns a little more about mindfulness, he discovers some pretty disturbing new coping strategies… Very excited to share my review as part of the Murder Mindfully blog tour!

About the book

Björn has been given an ultimatum: repair his work-life balance, or his wife Katharina will leave him – and take their daughter.

He reluctantly starts a mindfulness class and to his surprise, it’s a revelation. He becomes calmer, more focused, and he’s starting to understand what’s really important in life. So when his client and brutal crime boss Dragan Sergowicz tries to interfere with his precious family time, Björn remembers his new-found goal to find serenity – and kills him.

Now Björn can deepen his practice and seek inner peace – violently.

The beginning

I found it really easy to get sucked into this author’s writing. I’m not sure what it was, but it just flowed so brilliantly and within that first chapter, I was fully invested in Björn’s life. After his wife complains about him basically not being present in their lives, not spending enough time with their daughter, always putting work first, she makes him choose between a better work-life balance, or a life without them in it. I loved how we’re constantly in Björn’s mind. He tell us about the start of his ‘mindfulness’ journey. He explains his involvement with dangerous men in his career (looking at you, Dragan Sergowicz.) He hints about the murder. The build up, even within the first couple of chapters, had me so excited and curious to find out more about his own, personal, journey to mindfulness. Björn felt like a very unique character. Someone you can’t help but become fascinated by, someone you want to follow until the end. And someone who you just know will surprise you in ways you won’t see coming. A really strong opening!

“Do not focus on what another person says, but what they want to say. What you hear is only an echo of their inner world. If you feel instead of just listen, many insults actually turn out to be cries for help.”

Dragan Sergowicz, unsurprisingly as king of crime, was a guy you really wouldn’t want to mess with. However, Björn’s job requires him to drop everything if a phone call from Dragan comes through. Even if they happen at the most inconvenient of times, such as Björn’s special trip away with his daughter, Emily. You know that feeling when you can just smell trouble, that you know everything that could possibly go wrong in a moment, will go wrong? Well, that feeling was pretty strong here. Something was about to go down. Already, the book gets gloriously dark. Dragan tries to interfere with Björn and Emily’s family time, and no one interferes with father-daughter time. Instead of going back to his old ways of feeling stress and working out how to best support his client, Björn practices his mindfulness, as he’s been told to when things get too much. And he kills Dragan. The contrast of the murder with the mindfulness was so refreshingly different. Disassembling Dragan felt very Dexter-esque and was so wonderfully gruesome. Ahh, mindfulness. Doesn’t it just work wonders? 😌

The middle

With his personal and professional lives in the early stages of colliding, it becomes harder for Björn to stay mindful. He and his wife are struggling to find a preschool place for Emily, and one very harsh rejection (due to an unfortunate work decision from Björn some time ago) results in another ultimatum from his wife – after repairing their relationship was going so well! He needed to fix this, and find his daughter a preschool spot before the deadline, or his wife and child would move away. Despite Björn now technically a murderer, I did feel sorry for all his bad luck. His family life was slowly crumbling and his kill room at the lake house was being searched after the hunt for Dragan heats up. If only Björn could tell them… I really felt the pressure Björn was dealing with, and I predicted it would only get more intense the closer the authorities get to the truth. However, Björn was clever. His job has taught him to be. I wondered how long he could keep his nose clean, as well as keep his secret locked securely away. I certainly felt the tension!

“When you forgive the person you are angry with, the greatest freedom you generate is your own. Once you are able to see that the person you are so immensely angry with is a wounded soul just like you, forgiving them will be all the easier.”

There seemed to be a lot happening during this part of the book and at the same time, it made the progress of the plot feel really slow moving at times. (Does that make sense? 😅) A few scenes lost my full attention for a while and it felt like I was waiting too long for the next big thing. I had to do a bit of back tracking and think, “Right, what’s going on here? Who is doing what? Who is this person again?!” Björn’s life and the crime ring he worked for was so full on, so intense, so complicated, and there were many characters to follow which (I think) made my concentration drop a bit. However, this didn’t last too long. With people on Björn’s back about speaking with Dragan, with people threatening his family if they don’t put him into contact with them, he snaps. But mindfully, of course. He had a plan. I was waiting for more murder, more gory bits, more excitement here, because the author quite clearly writes this to perfection! I knew the ending would give me all that though, I could feel it! I couldn’t predict any of what was to come, but it was brilliant!

The end

Even though Björn was a confident guy already (he had to be as a criminal defence lawyer) I sensed an even bigger confidence boost in him since practising his mindfulness and making plans to take out more highly dangerous individuals. There’s such a brilliant scene showing this boosted confidence, as well as showcasing the brilliant humour laced throughout the book. We see a group of criminals sitting on colourful preschool chairs, eating the most stereotypical school lunch you could imagine. I thought this scene really encapsulated the theme of the book. It was quite the picture! Björn’s cleverness really shines through here; his elaborate plans always seem to work and as his main plan to take down Toni comes to fruition, I was glued to the pages. It was dangerous, it was uncertain, completely filled with suspense. But of course, there are also heartfelt moments, especially when it comes to Björn’s daughter, a bond that is also written so wonderfully. I loved the contrast in all this!

“Mindfulness can kill people and break noses, but it can melt icebergs too.”

The pacing was perfect on the race to that ending chapter and I was so invested in Björn’s plans. There’s murder, there’s lots of mindfulness, there’s plenty of covering up the truth. And there’s also facing the inevitable. Björn’s mindfulness really gets quite contagious here, and I strangely began to feel a sense of calm amongst the chaos, which I imagine was exactly how Björn was feeling right about then! Again, it was a wonderful contrast. The ending scene was absolute genuis. I just loved the intricate plans, Björn’s confidence in its execution, even though us readers aren’t sure how things will play out until it actually does. The book ties up so much, but leaves the perfect amount to the imagination. The final scene is so clever, slightly unnerving and so brilliantly written that I couldn’t help but smile. I can easily see why this book was chosen for a Netflix series which I can’t wait to watch after reading this! The perfect book for lovers of crime novels with a dark, humourous side. Such a unique read!

Overall thoughts

Murder Mindfully is such a unique crime novel written with a dark, comical edge. I couldn’t help but get fully drawn into such an original concept, the murder and the mindfulness contrasting in such a clever way from beginning to end. For the most part, it’s an addictive read, characters are developed so well (even though there are a fair few to get acquainted with) and the plot was really engaging. The mindfulness quotes at the start of each chapter were surprisingly useful (but I definitely won’t be using them to commit a murder, ha) and the way this theme of being mindful became the foundations of everything Björn does to turn his life around was explored to perfection. It’s a dangerous, tense and thrilling journey until the very last page, with some brilliant laughs along the way. A must read!

Huge thanks to the author, Karsten Dusse, and the brilliant team at Faber Books for my proof copy and spot on the blog tour! You can grab your own copy of Murder Mindfully right now over on Amazon or wherever you buy your books.

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