This Weekend Doesn't End Well for Anyone, by Catherine Mack (REVIEW) — When a Murder Mystery Vacay Becomes a Murder Mystery Hell

A popular murder mystery writer—with a penchant for finding herself involved in actual murders (and murder-adjacent situations)—accepts an invitation to teach at a weekend writing retreat.

It’s in the Bahamas. Sun, sand, ocean waves, and potent cocktails served with little umbrellas? Of courseshe’ll do it.

So what if that means giving pointers to an over-eager group of would-be writers?

It’s only three days. What could possibly go wrong?!

Turns out, a lot, in Catherine Mack’s wickedly-funny little romp, This Weekend Doesn’t End Well for Anyone.

 

 

Eleanor Dash is more than ready for a vacation—particularly since the last two she went on wound up turning into murder investigations... with her at the center.

(Okay, so her bestselling series involves murders... on vacations... so there’s also that.)

Regardless, she’d like to enjoy an actual vacation, for once, but this one doesn’t start out promisingly when the location turns out to be a small hotel that’s well past its prime.

At least she’s there with her boyfriend, Oliver (a considerably less-successful fellow writer); her younger-sister-slash-Girl-Friday, Harper; and her long-time editor, Vicki. 

It’s some of the other attendees she’s less-thrilled about being in paradise with... Connor, her ex-lover (who—in a weird plot twist—became a mega-popular rom-com author); and Sandrine, an ex-best-friend-turned-bitter-rival.

Throw in a TikTok reviewer who trashed her last book and a Misery-worthy stalker, and... yeah, Eleanor finds herself regretting her life decisions, about now.

Oh... there’s also the matter of the body she and Oliver find when they walk into their heavy-on-the-shabby(-chic) Bridgerton-meets-the-islands room.

But hey, at least she won’t have writer’s block on subject matter for her next book... provided she lives long enough to write about it.

 

This Weekend Doesn’t End Well for Anyone is actually the third entry in Mack’s Eleanor Dash series, but the first one I’ve read, so I had a little catching up to do.

Fortunately, there’s ample backstory provided, courtesy of Eleanor’s first-person narrative (plus a lot of breaking-the-fourth-wall asides to the reader). 

Her voice—witty, sarcastic, and wry—is fun, and those asides do a lot of heavy lifting. As the reader, I always knew exactly what was on her mind.

The other players—most of whom also appeared in prior books—are well-drawn (though it’s important to keep in mind we only see them from Eleanor’s perspective), and generally entertaining.

And, for the first three-fourths of the book, everything hums along nicely. 

That dead body, everyone’s-suddenly-Miss-Marple-or-Sherlock-Homes, a gruff policeman, more mayhem, and so on, keep the tension—and humor—going.

Until, that is, things speed up so much that the last quarter stumbles a bit... getting bogged down in all the twists, wrong turns, red herrings, misunderstandings, come-to-Jesus moments, and... yeah, it’s A LOT.

But it’s only fair to add that Mack successfully reeled everything back in at the very end, so aside from a few chapters that felt like being thrown into the middle of a tropical storm, this one was definitely a fun read... by an author I’d happily read again.

If you enjoy cozy-adjacent mysteries, a self-aware protagonist (who has plenty of tea to spill to you), and picturesque(-ish) vacation settings, This Weekend Doesn’t End Well for Anyone would be a great addition to your summer reading list... whether you’re going on a beach vacay yourself, or just wish you were. 

[It's coming out April 28, so put it on your list, pronto!]

~GlamKitty

[Thanks to Minotaur Books and St. Martin's Press for providing this book for review consideration via NetGalley. All opinions are, as always, entirely my own.]