Devi Nair
🎧 Listened in audio 📢 Narrated by L.J. Ganser ⏱ Duration: 14 hours 🏷️ Publisher: SoHo Crime ARC provided by NetGalley Genre: Cozy Mystery
I want to paint you a picture: 30+ hours of flight delays. Lost baggage. Airport limbo. The kind of travel day that makes you question every life choices, including the one where you said yes to the connecting flight. And through every single chaotic minute of it, Björn Diemel had me cackling. Karsten Dusse did not just save my sanity on that trip, he elevated it, which fittingly, is very on-brand for a book about mindfulness.
Björn Diemel is a defense lawyer so deep in mob entanglement that his moral compass doesn't just spin, it's completely detached from its housing. And yet, through the lens of his therapy sessions with mindfulness counselor Joschka Brietner, he becomes genuinely thoughtful, present, and self-aware about everything except the murders. The mindfulness lessons at the start of each chapters, I'm not joking when I say, are legitimately applicable to real life. How does this man write a satirical crime romp that also doubles as a functional self-help guide? I don't know. I don't need to know. I just need the rest of the series RIGHT NOW!!
I should mention, I actually read Book 2 first because NetGalley approved it before this one landed in my queue. I went into Murder Mindfully already knowing I loved this world, and I was prepared to enjoy this one too. What I wasn't prepared for was loving Book 1 more. The origin story hits differently when you know where Björn ends up, The dark comedy is sharper here, the stakes feel fresher, and watching him justify his first foray into crime with the serenity of a man who has just discovered breathe work is chef's kiss.
The translation by Florian Duijsens deserves its own round of applause. The dry wit and comedic timing land perfectly in English. The narration by L. J. Ganser adds another layer to the beauty of this book. His dry, deadpan delivery perfectly matches Dusse's humor Imagine Breaking Bad meets Headspace, but make it cozy. That's this audiobook. This book was a German bestseller before it was anything else, and to think English readers almost missed it entirely? Absolutely criminal. (Björn would agree, and then he'd do something about it, very calmly.)
Would I recommend it? If you've been sleeping on this one, wake up, caffeinate, and add this to your TBR immediately. Murder Mindfully is the kind of book you'll want to shout about from rooftops while also texting your group chat the funniest quotes at midnight. It's dark, it's deliriously funny, it's oddly instructive about mindfulness, and it features one of the most unhinged protagonist I've ever had the pleasure of spending 14 hours with. This series is a gift to the reading world, and I will be at MOTIVE in Toronto in June, making absolutely no attempt to be cool when I meet Karsten Dusse.
Originally posted at viewsshewrites.com.
🎧 Listened in audio 📢 Narrated by L.J. Ganser ⏱ Duration: 14 hours 🏷️ Publisher: SoHo Crime ARC provided by NetGalley Genre: Cozy Mystery
I want to paint you a picture: 30+ hours of flight delays. Lost baggage. Airport limbo. The kind of travel day that makes you question every life choices, including the one where you said yes to the connecting flight. And through every single chaotic minute of it, Björn Diemel had me cackling. Karsten Dusse did not just save my sanity on that trip, he elevated it, which fittingly, is very on-brand for a book about mindfulness.
Björn Diemel is a defense lawyer so deep in mob entanglement that his moral compass doesn't just spin, it's completely detached from its housing. And yet, through the lens of his therapy sessions with mindfulness counselor Joschka Brietner, he becomes genuinely thoughtful, present, and self-aware about everything except the murders. The mindfulness lessons at the start of each chapters, I'm not joking when I say, are legitimately applicable to real life. How does this man write a satirical crime romp that also doubles as a functional self-help guide? I don't know. I don't need to know. I just need the rest of the series RIGHT NOW!!
I should mention, I actually read Book 2 first because NetGalley approved it before this one landed in my queue. I went into Murder Mindfully already knowing I loved this world, and I was prepared to enjoy this one too. What I wasn't prepared for was loving Book 1 more. The origin story hits differently when you know where Björn ends up, The dark comedy is sharper here, the stakes feel fresher, and watching him justify his first foray into crime with the serenity of a man who has just discovered breathe work is chef's kiss.
The translation by Florian Duijsens deserves its own round of applause. The dry wit and comedic timing land perfectly in English. The narration by L. J. Ganser adds another layer to the beauty of this book. His dry, deadpan delivery perfectly matches Dusse's humor Imagine Breaking Bad meets Headspace, but make it cozy. That's this audiobook. This book was a German bestseller before it was anything else, and to think English readers almost missed it entirely? Absolutely criminal. (Björn would agree, and then he'd do something about it, very calmly.)
Would I recommend it? If you've been sleeping on this one, wake up, caffeinate, and add this to your TBR immediately. Murder Mindfully is the kind of book you'll want to shout about from rooftops while also texting your group chat the funniest quotes at midnight. It's dark, it's deliriously funny, it's oddly instructive about mindfulness, and it features one of the most unhinged protagonist I've ever had the pleasure of spending 14 hours with. This series is a gift to the reading world, and I will be at MOTIVE in Toronto in June, making absolutely no attempt to be cool when I meet Karsten Dusse.
Originally posted at viewsshewrites.com.