ALL DRESSED UP

3.5 stars out of 5

How do you spoil an otherwise clever, creative plot? Make a main character so insufferable that it's hard to focus on anything else.

At issue is Rebecca, who is beside herself because her husband Blake cheated on her a while back (they've been in therapy, but that seems only to have turned Becca into even more of a hot mess). So as a surprise intended to bring them closer together, Blake arranged for a role-playing mystery theater weekend at Millingham House, a posh hotel. That, too, arouses Becca's suspicions, especially when a couple of the other women in the mystery party are a little too beautiful to suit her and he dares not only to look, but (gasp!) speak to them.

It's the mystery theater angle that makes up the clever and creative part of the equation; dressed for the 1920s and assigned character roles and funky names like "Miss Ann Thrope" to stick with throughout the weekend, the plan is for the guests to figure out who the murderer is at the conclusion of their stay. Chapters that outline what each is to reveal (or not) to the others and provide background for their fake identities are interspersed with real-time situations - many of which are hard to separate from the role-play scenarios the guests are expected to follow.

At the outset, a "murder" happens right before their eyes - a fun part of the experience, until Becca freaks out because her clueless, cheating husband didn't tell her what the weekend entailed before they arrived and she thought it was real - a horror she just can't get past because, she insists, it made her look foolish in the eyes of the other guests. Then when one of the staff members - all of whom are role-playing as well - turns up missing, Becca doesn't believe the explanation the guests are given. Instead, she chooses to concoct her own morbid version (and, predictably, takes it as a personal affront when Blake and some of the others don't readily buy into her theory).

I did have one thing in common with Becca, though; it was a little hard for me to separate pretend from reality most of the way through (giving me insight as to how she must have felt while building momentum for the ending). But although I've attended a couple of real-life events similar to this, I failed miserably both times when it came time to picking the whodunit - giving Becca a decided edge over me in that department. The ending brought some closure to the marriage travails, although the advice I had for Becca early on stands: Yep, Blake done you wrong; now either kick him to the curb or stand by your man and get on with it.

Overall, though, the entire adventure made for a fun and unique reading experience - one I'm sure many others will enjoy. Thanks to the publisher, via NetGalley, for providing me with a pre-release copy to read and review.

All Dressed up by Jilly Gagnon (Bantam, September 2022); 318 pp.