Breakaway Books

Authored by Laura Lippman; Published June 2025; Mystery

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ / 🏖️🏖️🏖️🏖️

What makes a mystery cozy? I don’t think I could quantify it precisely, but I do think Murder Takes a Vacation, with its charming if sometimes naive heroine, and its river cruise setting, qualifies.

In Murder Takes a Vacation, Muriel Blossom is dedicated to turning over a new leaf. Her daughter and family have moved overseas, Muriel has come into significant lottery winnings, and it’s time for her to push herself out of her comfort zone. So, she books herself a trip to Paris and a plush suite on a river cruise up the Seine. But as soon as she gets to the airport, odd occurrences begin to plague her. She meets a charming man who kindly guides her through the international travel process and even helps her through a missed connection, only for him to end up dead a few hours after they part ways. Soon enough, more strangers begin to insert themselves into her lives, bringing plenty of danger with them, and they all seem to have ulterior motives for getting to know Muriel. Can she untangle what’s really going on?

The sheer volume of weird stuff that happens to Muriel is part of what makes this novel so fun. By the third or fourth “huh!” moment, I just couldn’t tell which strange events were related to the mystery at hand and what was merely random happenstance. Was it mere coincidence that she found a winning lottery ticket for over $8 million? How about when she was assisted by a handsome man on her first international flight who then insisted on booking her a hotel room in London? I liked puzzling it out along with Muriel. Enjoying Muriel herself is critical to this novel; personally, I delighted in the emotional honesty she showed even inside her own head. Her insecurities about her age, her image, and her relationship to her family all come through loud and clear, and yet, she is aware of them, trying to surmount them and seeking a happy life.

Pairing Muriel with the younger, mysterious Pakistani American Danny for much of the novel makes for some fascinating exchanges. Muriel has no idea how to appropriately address his ethnicity and his sexual orientation, but she is so desperate not to offend. Danny, for his part, is borderline rude and nearly impossible to pin down—truly one of the greatest mysteries the novel presents. He is a unique character, sharp-tongued in his critiques of Muriel’s clothes, but genuinely remorseful every time he accidentally hurts her feelings. The inner conflict he sets off in Muriel regarding her appearance, and the subsequent makeover, is not at all expected for a woman of her age, but I did enjoy the escapism of a makeover with a private stylist and seamstress in Paris of all places.

If cozy mysteries are your thing, you really can’t go wrong with Murder Takes a Vacation. It certainly made me want to take a trip up the Seine.