Please note that I received this book via NetGalley. This did not affect my rating or review.
This took forever. What kills me is that it’s a short book (only 269 pages) and it dragged. Terribly.
I have read all of the Tess Monaghan books, FYI there are 11 books and some novellas too. I was a huge fan of this series and I think only gave two of the books 2 stars, but I thought most were 3 stars or above reads. For the last book and novella in the series though, I gave “The Girl in the Green Coat” 5 stars and “The Bookshop Thing” 4 stars respectively. I bring this up since if you don’t read that whole series, I think some readers may be lost a bit when they read “Murder Takes a Vacation”. The main character of this book, Muriel Blossom or Mrs. Blossom was introduced to readers in the main series. Now with the end of the Tess Monaghan series, Lippman has given Mrs. Blossom another whirl.
I would ultimately say I am mostly disappointed because I thought this be more akin to Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple books and it was not. I mean you even have a cruise down the Seine! I was like please give me some “Caribbean Mystery” flavor. All in all this was a dud, the flow didn’t help, but I got really sick of Mrs. Blossom. At one point I went, how in the world are you taking so long to figure out if someone is really who they say they are after everything that has gone on? I think the book is trying to say a lot about older women, their wants and dreams and how the need for love doesn’t go away just because you are older. But it’s so repetitive to the point I was wondering if Lippman was getting paid by the word. Also, Mrs. Blossom used to work for a PI (Tess) and did surveillance, and her naivety at this point was exhausting and annoying. It didn’t make any sense after a while.
Lippman can still write though, and her love of Baltimore (though we change settings to London and France) still shine through. I just felt bored. I got a glimmer of her other works when Tess shows up in this book. Then the book grabbed me again. But when it focuses solely on Muriel and just everything that she has dealt with during and after her marriage to Mr. Blossom, her friends, her daughter, her son-in law Trout, how old and fat she was, etc. it just felt stuffed. Which is weird since again, this book was only 269 pages.