Credit where credit is due. This murder mystery concerning a destination wedding kept me rather entertained. And it also kept me rather relieved that I wasn’t any part of this (fortunately, fictional) affair, as the participants were, on the whole, rather loathsome people. 

The Guest List is rather reminiscent of an Agatha Christie story, updated for the 21st century. Christie generally included a cast of affiliated characters with complicated pasts assembled together, whether in a village, a country estate, a resort, or a train, along with a surprise dead body. And that’s what we have at the outset of this story, although we don’t find out until the end who has been killed, and by whom, and why. (And of course, there’s no Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot to investigate.)

Agatha Christie covered social climbers, illicit love affairs, jealousies, betrayals, dysfunctional families, long buried secrets and lies, and all manner of human depravity and violence. But, having died in the 1970s, she did not incorporate reality television, social media, revenge porn, explicit sex, or influencers into her stories. Whether or not the inclusion of such plot elements is an improvement of her formula is entirely up to you, the reader.  

Anyway, here we have a bridezilla, a bunch of overgrown immature schoolboys, an insecure wife, a fragile and self-harming bridesmaid, some atrocious parental figures, a very worried wedding planner, and a lot of heavy drinking on an isolated island off the Irish coast…what could go wrong?  

There are plot holes and hard-to-believe coincidences herein, but you don’t pick up this kind of book expecting realism, do you? Enjoy the ride, be glad that your friends and family aren’t nearly this godawful, appreciate the plot twists, and rest assured…the victim deserved it.

HOW TO PURCHASE: AMAZON

NOVEL: The Guest List

AUTHOR: Lucy Foley

YEAR OF PUBLICATION: 2020

LEAD-IN IMAGE

Book cover, HarperCollins