Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies is the first book in a new cozy summer series by Catherine Mack. Released 30th April 2024 by by Macmillan on their Minotaur imprint, it's 352 pages and is available in hardcover, paperback, audio, and ebook formats. It's worth noting that the ebook format has a handy interactive table of contents as well as interactive links and references throughout.
This is such fun: a bestselling female mystery author/amateur sleuth on a destination book tour, rabid book fans, other literary types and adjunct publicity folks on the same tour, a rogueish blackmailer from the author's past, and crime. Ms. Mack, writing under a pseudonym is actually an accomplished and experienced author (Catherine McKenzie). She excels at characterization and plotting, and here, too, her characters are three dimensional and well rendered.
Stylistically, there are a lot of departures from standard style. It's written in first person, from the PoV of Eleanor, and much of the story is relayed in asides, footnotes, and other non-standard ways, and it's quite jarring flipping back and forth. It rendered the whole choppy and disjointed. That being said, it's light, and fun, and the book within a book/author writing as an author technique doesn't get bogged down or trip over its own feet (it's just the flipping footnotes). For readers who enjoy footnotes (like Pratchett), snarky humor, and breaking the third wall, this will likely be a positive feature and not a bug.
The unabridged audiobook has a run time of 9 hours 34 minutes and is capably read by Elizabeth Evans. She has a light, breathy voice, but does a good job with the disparate cast (of both sexes and a range of ages). One positive benefit of the audiobook is that the asides and footnotes are woven in, obviating the need to flip back and forth; it flows much better.
Four stars. A series starter, but the second volume publishing info isn't released yet (presumably middle of 2025). It would be nice for public library acquisition, as a summer weekend read or a buddy read.
Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.
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