solving a murder in three acts
Eleanor Dash is the bestselling author of the Vacation Mystery Series, and she is getting ready to spill all her secrets in a 3-day writing writing conference in the Bahamas. And as she said with her first book, every time she goes on vacation, someone dies.
She arrived in Nassau with her sister and assistant Harper; her boyfriend Oliver Forrest, who is also a writer; Connor Smith, a con man who has wrangled himself into her book dealings since she made him into the hero of that first book; and Elizabeth Ben, the keynote speaker and venerated author whose detective novels are legendary. And they barely arrive at the resort and get to their room before everything changes.
Because there, on the floor of the two-room villa she and Oliver were sharing with Harper is a dead body.
The body is wearing a resort uniform, but Eleanor finds out that he was actually fired weeks before. So she wants to know why he was back at the resort and in uniform like he was working, and why his body was left in their room. While the local police quickly determine that the body had done that to himself, Eleanor wasn’t convinced and started to look at the situation as if it was a murder. Because it was.
But first, there is a writing conference, and they need to get to the welcome lunch while the resort finds another room to put them in. Over the next few hours, Eleanor realizes that she knows too many people at the conference. The resort’s security officer. The “real member of the police force” that the brochure promised to the writers. Her book editor. Fellow writer Ravi Bortha, who took over his brother’s series. Her ex-best friend Sandrine, who is also a published mystery writer. A TikToker who gave her book a bad review. And even her stalker Crazy Cathy.
Some of those people have a legitimate reason to be at the conference, as writers. But others feel like a personal attack of Eleanor, as so many were involved in the other murders she had solved and then written novels about. But is that just a weird coincidence, or is someone trying to get to her? And if they are trying to get to her, is it just to drive her crazy, or do they have nefarious plans for Eleanor?
As she teaches her conference students about the three acts of a murder mystery, she is trying to solve the real murder that lay in front of her. But as any fan of murder mysteries knows, there is a lot of danger for anyone who tries to catch a killer, and while they usually survive in the stories, real life doesn’t always follow the same rules.
This Weekend Doesn’t End Well for Anyone is the third book in Catherine Mack’s Vacation Mystery Series. These mysteries are smart and intricate, with the same characters finding themselves tangled together over and over. That being said, the books do not have to be read in order, but I do think it’s easier to understand how the stories and characters interact if you do start with the first book.
Eleanor is a character with a strong voice, and these are told in first-person. She does like to use footnotes to make her point, which means flipping back and forth a lot to keep up with them. This book has the extra structure of her talking about story structure and what is supposed to be happening at each point of the mystery novel. That was a fun addition to this book, as she is pointing out the plot points as she hits the story points in her investigation of the body in her villa. I thought that was particularly clever and compelling.
I listened to This Weekend Doesn’t End Will for Anyone, narrated beautifully by Elizabeth Evans. Evans understands Eleanor and is happy to add her snark, frustration, intelligence, and petulance (not a criticism; I’d be petulant too if it seemed like someone was trying to set me up at a writer’s conference I was gracious enough to speak at). The bonus of this audio book is that those footnotes that you have to flip to when reading the book get included seamlessly with the narration. Evans just reads them as part of the text and moves on. For those annoyed by fiction with frequent footnotes, listening to the audio book helps smooth that out.
I am a fan of these books. I think they’re fun, and I like how they’re set in interesting places around the world. The plotting is smart, and the characters are dynamic. They are perfect for reading on a trip, or by the pool while I’m dreaming about taking a trip.
Egalleys for This Weekend Doesn’t End Well for Anyone were provided by Minotaur Books, and an early copy of the audio book was provided by Macmillan Audio, both through NetGalley, with many thanks, but the opinions are mine.
