Review of MURDER TAKES A VACATION by Laura Lippman

 2 Stars

This audiobook has been accompanying me on my morning walks, but it was not the most entertaining of companions.

Murial Blossom is going on vacation to Europe after winning a lottery. Allan Turner, a charismatic, handsome stranger, befriends her at the airport and even spends a day in London with her before she leaves for Paris where she is taking a cruise on the Seine. In Paris she meets another man, Danny Johnson, who is equally attentive. Murial is surprised when Danny ends up on her cruise and shocked when she learns that Allan died from a fall from his hotel balcony. Strange things begin to happen: Muriel suspects she is being followed, her room is searched, and a man attempts to steal her purse. What is going on?

My problem with the book is the protagonist. Murial is 68 years old and she had done surveillance for a private detective, yet she is incredibly gullible, trusting, and even helpless. She is such a poor judge of character; she accepts whatever people tell her. She takes a sleep aid from a stranger? She lets a stranger watch her while she falls asleep? She never questions suspicious behaviour? And when it comes to men, she behaves like a teenager. Men (Allan, Danny, Paul) seem to flock to her and then she turns into a giddy ninny. She mocks her friend Elinor’s flirtations, yet she herself seems to need male attention, wondering whether each man she meets could possibly be interested in her romantically.

In the Author’s Note at the end, Lippman mentions that Mrs. Blossom is a minor character introduced in the Tess Monaghan series. Readers accused the author of being anti-fat in her depiction so she decided to have Mrs. Blossom as her plus-sized protagonist. I think we are supposed to believe that Mrs. Blossom is comfortable with her size, but that does not seem to be the case. She refers to her size over and over and over again. She even lets a guide intimidate her into not going on a tour because she is self-conscious. This is not what I would call a body-positive portrayal.

There is an attempt to show that Mrs. Blossom attains some self-knowledge: she experienced great love with her husband and has other kinds of love in her life, so she doesn’t need a romance with a man to make her complete. She decides to focus on finding a purpose for her life and doing the things that give her happiness. However, this change comes unconvincingly quickly.

The mystery, revolving around a stolen statue, is lacklustre. The whole thing just seems trivial. And it’s so obvious who is involved in the caper! The fact that Mrs. Blossom doesn’t see what is so patently obvious just adds to the impression that she is naive, if not stupid.

If this is the first of a new series, I will not be continuing. The protagonist is annoying and does not behave in a credible manner, the pace is slow, tension is lacking, and the plot is predictable.