Becca is having a rough time. Ever since she found out that her husband Blake had been cheating on her, she has been beaten down with feelings of insecurity, jealousy, and betrayal. To help ask for forgiveness, Blake set up a weekend getaway for them, to a gorgeous hotel in the middle of nowhere. And when they show up, Becca is happy to find out that some of their best friends, Heather and Phil were there for the weekend also.
Suddenly there is a scream, and they all run to try to figure out what happened. Becca finds a maid on the floor and realizes that there is a woman lying on the floor not too far away, a pool of blood around her. She jumps in immediately and tries to help, and then realizes that no one else is reacting the way she is. She looks around and realizes that everyone else there had expected something like this to happen. It’s a theme weekend, a murder mystery, and Blake had kept that secret from her.
Becca is furious with him for not letting her into the theme of the weekend. She had known it was a 1920s theme, but the murder mystery came as a big surprise, and she felt really embarrassed to be the only person who didn’t know about it. Blake apologizes, saying that he thought she’d enjoy it since she’d been spending so much time lately watching mysteries on television. But she’d been doing that to try to process her feelings about Blake cheating on her.
Later, Becca tells the rest of the group that clearly she hadn’t known about the murder mystery, to try to save face, but no one else really cared. They understood and just wanted to have fun playing the game. So as they got into their characters, and into the alcohol, Becca’s embarrassment melts away and she starts to make new friends.
The next day, hungover but excited, the murder mystery game starts in earnest. Each person is given a character to embody, with secrets to keep and clues to offer to others. As they question each other and look around the hotel for clues, Becca starts to think something else may be going on. She sees Blake flirting with other women and tries to keep her anxiety in check. But then one of the actresses in the game, Bethany, who was playing the part of a maid, goes missing. Becca starts to question if something happened to her. The staff are saying that she had just left, but that doesn’t ring true to Becca, who had talked to her about the murder mystery when she had needed some help, and Bethany had been really excited about her role.
As Becca tries to balance her relationship issues along with the murder mystery game and the possibility of a genuine mystery at the hotel, she observes the others, keeps her eyes and ears open, and searches for clues. But will she be able to figure out what’s really happening at the hotel, or will she lose her marriage, or maybe even her life, as she gets wrapped up in a series of mysteries that may or may not even be real?
All Dressed Up is a layered murder mystery from author Jilly Gagnon. There is a lot happening in this novel, between the struggles in the marriage, the murder mystery game, and the missing maid. The variety of the characters, the way they each have their own agenda, and the way they interact almost lends the feeling of a farce. However, the seriousness of the marriage issues and the mystery of the missing woman bring a gravitas to keep the story from becoming flippant.
I enjoyed All Dressed Up. I loved the setting of the murder mystery weekend for this locked-room mystery, and the layers of secrets added a lot to the story. However, there are some issues with pacing, so reading this book takes some effort. I think it’s worth it in the end, but telling almost the entire story through Becca’s perspective adds a very emotional element that does slow things down (the only parts that weren’t through Becca’s perspective were the blurbs from the booklets that each character had in the game). But there are a lot of fun elements to All Dressed Up, and I do think some mystery readers will enjoy it. I’d recommend reading an excerpt first, to see if you think you’ll find it enjoyable.
Egalleys for All Dressed Up were provided by Bantam Books through NetGalley, with many thanks.
