Book Review: Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies by Catherine Mack
By Janet Webb
June 11, 2024
How can readers resist going on a madcap book vacay with a side offering of mystery? The title of debut author Catherine Mack is an irresistible invitation to drop everything and devour her Vacation Mysteries series. Eleanor Dash is a bestselling author who wrote a runaway-success mystery based on a whirlwind Italian romance with a gentleman who sadly turned out to be a conman. Eleanor met Connor Smith in Rome; Connor was an investigator and Eleanor became caught up with his machinations and schemes. When the torrid affair finally lost its sizzle, Eleanor went home to Los Angeles and wrote her heart out. She got an agent and a book contract and ain’t life grand? An ending devoutly to be wished, no? Well, yes and no. Unfortunately, Eleanor’s mystery hewed too closely to her real-life affair and out of the blue, Connor reappeared and demanded aka blackmailed Eleanor and her publisher into gifting him a 20 percent “consultancy” fee. Twenty percent? Even agents only get 15 percent. Ten books later, Eleanor has had enough. She’s a successful mystery writer—she’ll write Connor out of her Vacation Series by murdering him on the page.
Here’s where it gets complicated. Eleanor and her younger sister Harper, a bountifully paid personal assistant and all-round factotum, are in Rome, ten years into the Vacation Series. They’re celebrating her fans, her social media presence, touring here and there, all whilst Eleanor desperately counts the minutes till her next Aperol Spritz. Eleanor is disinclined to read the elaborate itineraries her sister prepares for her, so she is shocked and dismayed when she realizes the magnitude of her ten-day schedule. She is so over this whole shebang. Consequently, she inadvertently disrespects and takes for granted her sister’s efforts on her behalf, even though she thinks to herself “my life would be a mess without her.”
“Harper?”
She brings her head down and turns. She looks disappointed, like I’ve woken her out of a particularly good dream.
“Yeah?”
“We’re not Catholic, right?”
“How could you not know that?”
“I remember church at Christmas, and didn’t we go at Easter sometimes? Am I making that up?”
“I’m not your memory palace.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Ha.”
And so on and so forth: Harper confirms they went to church on Christmas and Easter. Their parents died when Eleanor was eighteen—she thinks ruefully, “having to immediately become Harper’s parents seems to have erased most of my memories. The good ones, anyway.”
Could anything else further chill her vibe? Yes. Connor appears, he’s desperate—someone is trying to murder him. Is real life imitating art or the opposite? And how can Eleanor refuse to help discover Connor’s would-be murderer? Truthfully, she could quite easily shake off his plea for help, she thinks as she walks away from him.
I need to shake off the cognitive dissonance of the last five minutes.
Because what if someone did kill Connor?
That would be amazingly convenient.
Which is why it can’t be happening. Or maybe I’m magic. I’ve sometimes suspected as much. I know it sounds crazy, but sometimes I think something and then it happens. Okay, well, once. 14 But still . . . 15
What’s with the footnotes? Every Time I Go on Vacation, Someone Dies, is full of footnotes. They’re very amusing—check out #15:
Okay, I know that’s a lame example. But sometimes when I’m speaking to people, they pause, and I know the word they’re going to say before they say it. That’s a kind of magic, right?
Eleanor Dash’s brain is like a whirligig, dashing from thought to thought and emotion to emotion. She may be all over the map but she’s very smart. She has to be because folks do indeed die on her watch author junket and if she doesn’t want to end up in the kill column, she’ll have to figure out whodunnit.
Sometimes descriptions of books are absolutely on the nose, like this one: Ten days, eight suspects, six cities, five authors, three bodies . . . one trip to die for. Enjoy Catherine Mack’s unusual and captivating debut mystery.