All Dressed Up
By Jilly Gagnon
Jilly Gagnon’s All Dressed Up uses a murder mystery weekend getaway to analyze how married couples define a successful marriage and how the outside events can impact and reshape that marital view. The guests try to have fun and solve the mystery, but each couple brings a real secret that they may not want to share with the other participants. One of the staff members does not show up for work in the morning, and the other cast members paint her as an unreliable actress who decided to bail on the weekend. Is the answer really that simple, or is a real crime hiding behind the game scenario?
The book’s narrator is Becca Wilson, who is struggling to figure out the state of her marriage after discovering her husband Blake’s infidelity. Blake hopes that a 1920’s themed weekend getaway to a Catskills mansion will draw her out of her despondency. Blake’s colleague Phil and his wife Heather are there to celebrate their anniversary. Becca’s upset to see them because she doesn’t want them to see even the slightest crack in the Wilson marriage and reaches for alcohol to numb her pain. Becca stumbles over what she thinks is a dead body, only to discover that Blake surprised her with a murder mystery game. She’s livid and embarrassed, adding further tension to their relationship.
As the game unfolds, the guests end up divulging secrets about the state of their own marriages and how they respond to these outside forces. Becca is distracted when she learns the actress playing the maid has vanished. Becca had a conversation with the actress the night before and is concerned about her safety, while the others dismiss her as flighty and unreliable. By the end of the book, the major storylines have been tied up, including Becca’s decision about what’s next for Blake and her.
Since I’ve played one of those murder games before, I could easily follow and appreciate the game. Readers who have never played one can easily get swept up into the game because it is so clearly defined and presented. Having a potential missing person’s case tangled up in the game offers a fun twist, since it’s not easy to figure out which conversations and evidence are about the game, the actor’s disappearance, or are just red herrings.
The marriage issues and different standards of each person keep the book from dissolving into insignificance. Those issues push the game itself in a less prominent position, which gives the plotline and characterizations needed weight. The book includes plenty of locked-room mystery tropes, such as red herrings and the criminal’s arrogant monologue. Hindsight is 20/20, because the evidence was strewn throughout the book that pointed to the criminal. The evidence was subtle enough to make the criminal’s unmasking and reasons made sense while leading to facepalms for the number of clues missed while reading.
I thoroughly enjoyed All Dressed Up for its story and for provoking thoughtful questions about marriage that lingered after the book. It did not overshadow the lightness of a solid cozy mystery but added questions that a reader would ponder after reading.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for a review copy of the book. Opinions expressed here are my own.
