How to Solve Your Own Murder

Part of the fortune Frances fears says to “Beware the bird, for it will betray you” (3). This reference is to a motif in the novel which seems to refer to anything having to do with Frances’s friend with a bird name, Emily Sparrow, but in fact expands to refer to anyone who betrays Frances. Emily does indeed betray Frances by sleeping with and getting pregnant by John, Frances’s boyfriend. The betrayal goes deeper, however, as Emily’s disappearance takes over Frances’s life and destroys her happiness, showing the bird reference to be even more insidious than Frances suspected.

Emily buys the three friends bird charm necklaces, and these add to the motif. Rose throws hers away in disgust just before she kills Emily. Frances, however, is playing with the necklace over a year later when she makes the decision to dedicate her life to finding Emily’s killer and feels her goodness slipping away. The bird charm she refuses to stop wearing shows Emily’s continuing negative influence over her. While birds are often associated with freedom, anyone associated with the motif is less than free. Perrin additionally uses the motif to give away Emily’s killer in Chapter 13 when it is Rose, not Emily who is described as a frightening bird (116).