‘I was immensely grateful that despite the gruesome way my husband died, he’d done it with his clothes on.’
Anthony Wistern is wealthy beyond imagination. Fragrant wife, gaggle of photogenic children, French chateau, Cotswold manor, plethora of mistresses, penchant for cutting moral corners, tick tick tick tick tick tick.
Unfortunately for him, he’s also dead. Suddenly poised to inherit his fortune, each member of the family falls under suspicion.
And that’s when everything comes crashing down…
Book Info: Print length: 384 pages. Publisher: The Borough Press. Publication date: 12 September 2024
My Thoughts
I thoroughly enjoyed Bella Mackie’s book How To Kill Your Family and was really excited to see she has a new book coming out in September this year.
This is a darkly funny story about one of the MOST toxic and dysfunctional families EVER. Anthony Wistern is an influential, rich and adored financial guru. Married to the beautiful socialite Olivia they have four grown up children, several homes and a luxurious and enviable lifestyle.
It’s at his lavish 60th birthday celebrations with 200 of their closest friends in their Cotswold home that a freak and tragic accident leaves Anthony dead but that, believe it or not, is actually the beginning of his troubles.
Stuck in an afterlife holding centre, Anthony can’t go to his final resting place until he remembers exactly how he died and to do that he gets to watch his grieving family cope with his premature death and mourn his loss. Except, if you’ve read Bella Mackie’s books before you will know that isn’t exactly what happens especially if you are part of the Wistern family.
This story has 3 main narrators. We have Anthony, stuck in limbo having to face the truth about his death and his family. Olivia, the grieving widow who has a very troubled and uncomfortable relationship with her four children and finally, The Sleuth, a young woman fixated on true crime who happens to know the Wistern family and is determined to uncover the truth behind Anthony’s death.
Having read and ADORED Maz Evans’ Over My Dead Body in 2023, I was familiar with the “stuck in limbo” death scenario, and I did find myself comparing the books which was a shame, but I still enjoyed What A Way To Go however this was down to the absolutely awful characters involved rather than the humour.
This is the literary version of TV’s Succession and Dynasty and was full of twists and unexpected turns.
