Reviews with content warning for Blood - Murder Most Actual

I really enjoyed this murder mystery. I felt that it was just barely still a cozy mystery—even though our main character is in danger, the tone overall felt like a cozy—but there were a lot more deaths than I'm used to reading in a cozy mystery. (I think the final body count was 6?)

I enjoy the closed circle mystery trope a lot, where a small group of people are all stuck somewhere and can't rely on outside help to keep them safe or solve the mystery. (In this case, they were snowed in at a castle in remote Scotland, with no cell service, and the phone lines went out due to the storm.) It was also nice to have a reason why the main character started snooping around: Liza is a true crime podcaster, and so this was like having an inside scoop dumped in her lap.

But I think my favorite part of the story was the relationship aspect. Liza and Hanna are an established married couple when the story starts, but they have been having relationship trouble. Hanna booked this getaway as a surprise treat for Liza, but Liza would have rather been consulted on the vacation instead of surprised with one. It was very refreshing to have a story featuring an established couple at its heart, especially when the end result (spoiler) is not them splitting up to chase a shiny new relationship. Marriage can be hard, and it was really nice to have a fictional book show that in such a realistic way.

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ebroeffle's review

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emotional funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

5.0

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ashwaar's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

Murder Most Actual is a light-hearted, cosy mystery that follows married couple Liza and Hanna, who visit a lavish Scottish hotel to rekindle their relationship and become trapped in a snowstorm and ringed into solving a murder of potentially international intrigue. I loved that our two main characters were already well-established with each other instead of meeting for the first time, but I felt like the rest of the story needed some streamlining.

I don’t want to be incredibly critical of this book because there were parts that I enjoyed. I thought using Cluedo-style characters in this locked-room mystery was intriguing and worked well in a tongue-in-cheek way. I was really invested when the first murder happened and was keen to get caught up in the whodunnit, as I haven’t read anything like that before.

However, unfortunately, I found the mystery to be very dull. Characters kept on being murdered, but no one seemed like they were doing anything about it. Our main character and investigator, Liza, continuously repeated herself but never made any actual conclusions. I understand that murders in IRL are pretty uninteresting and boring, and that’s true, but that’s not very satisfying for a fictional murder mystery book.

I was expecting Knives Out in book form, and this isn’t that sort of book. I feel like the author needed to choose what to focus on - Liza and Hanna’s marriage or the increasing murders happening around them as doing both meant each storyline felt tenuous and thinly explored. But at the same time, the book was too long, and the repetition of dialogue and plot resulted in both becoming pretty dull, pretty quickly. Hall’s style of witty, sarcastic writing worked so well for Boyfriend Material, but it didn’t have the same effect on me here, which was disappointing.

Rating: 3/5

Trigger Warnings: blood, death, gore, gun violence, homophobia, murder, suicide, sexism violence

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robin_reads's review against another edition

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adventurous mysterious slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

3.5

This was cute. It felt like a cozy mystery and that’s a first for me.
I liked a d disliked the slightly struggling marriage a bit. It did add to the story and gave the characters depth and a developed character but at the same time it felt a bit out of place.
All I. All an easy but slow read with a lot of familiar tropes.

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stacy837's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

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mydearwatsonbooks's review against another edition

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amberinpieces's review

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mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? N/A
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

2.5

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