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

   This is definitely a book far out of my own regular reading arenas.  Cozy Mystery. 

I do not know exactly why I picked this up.  I was casting about for a particular kind of book- one that had some romance but wasn't exactly a romance, and one that would be thought provoking, but not an entire treatise on something... 

    And the Library had this one posted on their page. 

And it really was essentially  JUST OKAY. 

This is a cozy whodunit. Olivia is a modern day young adult, who is fascinated by Ms Merrit a world famous detective. Olivia finds herself in the job of assistant to Ms Merritt and the two embark on a new England adventure to discover who did away with an aging society darling. 

I did read the whole thing, I enjoyed the unraveling of the mystery and the brain gymnastics that I went through as I considered who I thought the killer might be.  I also enjoyed the very subtle subplot of Olivia's life- where she's planning a wedding to a nice guy, but she's not very interested in the wedding details, especially because his mother is quite involved in the wedding planning.  

Do I feel passionate about this one?  No, no I do not. It was.... fine.  It was enjoyable. It was also what I'd call an airport book- you pick it up, read it on a plane trip and might leave it in an airport because you definitely don't need to carry that extra weight in your journey.  Would I read more from this author?  Possibly. Would I gift this to a reader friend, or a book club white elephant- definitely!  It is interesting and does not contain deep exploration of any dark themes. 

STATS

First Published: 7/8/2025

Pages: 400 pages

Available as an Audio Book : YES  

Trigger Warnings:  violence, Murder, LGBTQ content, mild bullying

(this is not a full list, read responsibly)