Book Review: All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon

My Rating:

2.5⭐

Becca and her husband Blake travel to a remote mansion in the Catskills for a murder mystery weekend. Blake's affair with a colleague has added to the problems in their marriage and they have been seeking counseling. Given Becca’s love for mysteries and fondness for books and tv shows in the genre, the “Roaring Twenties” getaway where they get to dress up for a three-day Gatsby-themed weekend, is a thoughtful peace offering on Blake’s part. The weekend starts with an embarrassing moment for Becca, having not been provided with all relevant information before the commencement of the evening. With a total of four couples one of whom are friends of Blake and Becca and a full cast of staff dressed for the occasion, notes and schedules and amusing names and roles assigned to each of the participants, this weekend has a lot to offer.

However, when one of the staff/actors , Bethany, disappears and Becca overhears a strange conversation between a few of the members of the cast, she begins to suspect that there is more to Bethany’s disappearance than meets the eye. She also notes the suspicious behavior of a few of her fellow participants. In addition to following the clues for the staged mystery, Becca does some investigating on her own leading to an interesting sequence of events.

All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon is built around an interesting premise and has all the makings of a classic whodunit. The unique setting of a murder mystery weekend- an actual mystery within a staged mystery, multiple clues and red herrings, and the intricate plot should have made this a page-turner. But the slow movement of the plot and an unlikeable main character (equally unlikable other characters as well) made this difficult to get through. While I loved the murder mystery plot structure and the roles assigned to the participants as well as the atmospheric setting, we spend way too much time in Becca’s head as she ponders over the state of her marriage and compares her marriage to that of others, is constantly reminded of her husband’s infidelity (in turn so are we) and in her more enlightened moments waxes philosophical on the very institution of marriage. Repetitive and annoying to say the least and it distracts from the main plot. After a point, I simply lost interest in the story. I wish there had been more emphasis on the mystery instead.

In short, this novel started with much promise but failed to deliver. I really wanted to love this one much more than I did.

Many thanks to Yewon Son , Penguin Random House and NetGalley for the digital review copy of this novel. All opinions expressed here are my own.