A Death At The Party by Amy Stuart

Domestic suspense doesn't get any closer than a house party. Nadine is throwing a catered 60th birthday party with over a hundred guests, weeks in the planning, for her mother, the bestselling author Marilyn Millay. As the guests mingle upstairs, Nadine is in the basement bathroom, a man in distress dying on the floor, while Nadine panics: "Why isn't he dead yet? He needs to die."

Told throughout one day, Nadine obsesses over details with her laminated notes and lists. Her husband, Paul, is attentive, her teenage children appropriately sullen.

The dead man could be any one of the guests: her husband, Paul; his recently divorced friend, Seymour; the renter next door with the fake British accent, Teddy; local grocer (and fan of Marilyn's), Marvin; or Paul's friend, Lionel, who just had a baby with his young new wife. Nadine just finished an affair with Lionel.

They all grew up together and were all at the fateful party thirty years ago when Marilyn's sister Colleen tragically died. Ten-year-old Nadine discovered her body and never told the police she thought it wasn't an accident.

Every year is tainted by this history. Everyone has a secret they think no one knows.

Seymour's daughter is in a coma after an accidental overdose, her son Damian has illegal videos on his phone, and a journalist is blackmailing Nadine over stories that could ruin her mother's career. He wants more money.

With the party and speeches in full swing, no one knows there are blackmailers, pedophiles, and killers in their midst.

With so many plates in the air, Nadine is stressed and anxious about pulling this off, but it is oddly unengaging. There is little I cared about. I am not the only reviewer to find Nadine insufferable and the plot predictable. Nadine really does little, obsessing about herself most of the day. The victim was fairly easy to figure out, but you always hope for a final twist that proves you wrong. After a day of planning and a night of murder, this ended abruptly without a payoff.

A final letdown is seeing beautiful peonies on the cover of my edition, when the party was in honor of Marilyn, and everyone knows she hates peonies.

Disappointing.

2023 / Tradeback / 304 pages

My other review for Amy Stuart:

Still Mine