Title: Welcome to Murder Week
Author: Karen Dukess
Publisher: Gallery/Scout Press
Release Date: June 10, 2025
In this delightfully funny and heartfelt new novel from the author of the “bittersweet page-turner” ( The New York Times ) The Last Book Party , an American woman travels to the English countryside when she discovers tickets her late mother had purchased for a murder mystery simulation in a small British town.
When thirty-four-year-old Cath loses her mostly absentee mother, she is ambivalent. With days of quiet, unassuming routine in Buffalo, New York, Cath consciously avoids the impulsive, thrill-seeking lifestyle that her mother once led. But when she’s forced to go through her mother’s things one afternoon, Cath is perplexed to find tickets for an upcoming “murder week” in England’s Peak 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—and begins a journey she never could have anticipated.
Teaming up with her two cottage-mates, both ardent mystery lovers—Wyatt Green, forty, who works unhappily in his husband’s birding store, and Amity Clark, fifty, a divorced romance writer struggling with her novels—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.
Witty, wise, and deliciously escapist, Welcome to Murder Week is a fresh, inventive twist on the murder mystery and a touching portrayal of one daughter’s reckoning with her grief, her past—and her own budding sense of adventure.
A cozy mystery with a side of romance!
Cath is in her thirties. She is an optician who took over the practice when her boss retired. Her former boss now lives with her, and she leads a tranquil, predictable life. When Cath was young, her mother left her with her grandmother. Over the years, her mother has drifted in and out of her life—showing up briefly before disappearing again. Now her mother has died of a stroke, and Cath doesn’t know how to feel about it; she’s been mostly absent for Cath’s entire life.
Then Cath finds tickets for a paid murder-mystery simulation in a small town in England. She decides to go, and several things happen at once: she meets the charming local bar owner, Dev Sharma; she’s assigned two friendly housemates and teammates, Wyatt Green and Amity Clark; and for some reason, she feels an inexplicable connection to the town even though she has never been there before.
Welcome to Murder Week was super entertaining. It made me want to participate in one of these events—I would love to do it. It sounds like so much fun. Wyatt and Amity made excellent secondary characters, and the romance played out beautifully. Quite enjoyable.
Cliffhanger: No
4/5 Fangs
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