All Dressed Up by Jilly Gagnon

All Dressed Up has places to go. In its mind, anyway. It’s got a clever idea, an idea bound to set it apart from the countless similar thrillers out there. A murder mystery weekend, stylized like a golden age era mystery from 1920s, flappers, gangsters and all.
The merry event is sprung on the book’s protagonist by her loving but cheating husband as a sort of I’m-sorry-I-slept-around-on-you-for-six-months-but-I’m-back-now-and-see-I-notied-you-like-tv mysteries-so-yeah-let’s-do-this-together-and-get-back-on-track.
Funsies, right? Well, kinda, until art begins to imitate life too closely or no, actually, life begins to imitate art too closely. And a pretend murder might just be a real one.
Lots of potential here but ultimately the book gets dragged down by all its freaking estrogen. It’s like yeah, we get it, Blake cheated, boo-hoo, but can we get back to murder, please? This is a mystery thriller not a marriage counseling session. Can we talk less about marriage in general, maybe? Sheesh.
They can’t, though. It’s a ladies for ladies and about ladies affair through and through. And as such, it ends up way slower and less exciting that it ought to be. With a predictable killer to boot.
Decent enough, overall, but nothing special. At all. When it might have been, easily. The book just never quite lives up to the cleverness of its concept. Something like a beach read, maybe. Nothing to get dressed up for. Thanks Netgalley.