ARC Review: Welcome to Murder Week by Karen Dukess
The summer's only beach read set in a gloomy British village
I recently had the pleasure of receiving an ARC of Welcome to Murder Week by
from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.This book in three words: feel-good, mysterious, quirky
When thirty-four-year-old Cath loses her impulsive, thrill-seeking, yet absentee mother, she is ambivalent. Preferring a life of quiet, unassuming routine herself, Cath is perplexed to find her mother bought them both tickets for an upcoming “murder week” in England’s Peak District: a whole town has come together to stage a fake murder mystery to attract tourism to their quaint hamlet. Baffled but helplessly intrigued by her mother’s secret purchase, Cath decides to go on the trip herself. Teaming up with her two cottage-mates, both ardent mystery lovers, Cath sets about solving the “crime” and begins to unravel shocking truths about her mother along the way. Amidst a fling—or something more—with the handsome local maker of artisanal gin, Cath and her irresistibly charming fellow sleuths will find this week of fake murder may help them face up to a very real crossroads in their own lives.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
I opened this book with absolutely no idea what I was about to read. Quite literally, the ARC copy I received had only praise and no description on the back cover, and no inside flap to speak of. It was a fascinating experiment: would Murder Week turn into a rom-com? A tragic comedy? A fake murder-turned-real murder? Or an exploration of intergenerational drama?
In the end, it was a little bit of everything—a sort of hybrid feel-good novel that didn’t shy away from tough realities all at the same time. I love that it didn’t pretend to be one genre or bother including any specific genre conventions. It was unapologetically itself.
Even though no one actually dies, Murder Week kept me on my toes the whole time. I had fun making my own guesses about the mystery at the heart of the contest (I definitely did not guess it correctly) while attempting to make sense of Cath’s own genealogical mystery (I was a little closer on this one). Plus, there is such whimsy in the British pastoral town. And the side characters’ personalities just leapt off the page.
Even though Murder Week is set far from any beach, and only includes just the perfect single-scoop of romance, this is the beach read of the summer. I would recommend Dukess’ novel to anyone with a sense of humor or whimsy, and particularly to cozy mystery fans.