3 stars

Anthony Wistern is incredibly rich, relatively well known and dies in dramatic fashion at his 60th birthday party, held at his country home. But death is nothing like he thought it would be and he needs to figure out how he died before he’ll be able to move on in the afterlife. That’s not easy because not only could Anthony have died accidentally there are a lot of people who might have wanted to kill him, including his business partner and all five members of his own family.

The story is told from three points of view, Anthony’s, his wife, Olivia’s (she’s not sorry he’s gone) and from that of a podcaster, known only as “The Sleuth,” who loves true crime , lives nearby and believes Anthony, whom she knew, was murdered.

The book is of the “eat the rich” variety and from that standpoint it’s just fine. Anthony and Olivia have four children, each more horrible than the last, and everyone involved behaves badly and is likely beyond redemption. It was enjoyable enough (it’s always fun to read about people’s vision of the afterlife) but it won’t change your world and I found it to be just a bit long. But, overall, fairly decent.

It was Anthony's sixtieth birthday and his wife Olivia, known for her extravagant soirees, outdid herself. The party was held at The Gables, their mega-country house in the Cotswolds, that boasted its own man-made pond towards the rear of the estate. Decorating the outdoors with hundreds of torches just wasn't enough of a statement to match Anthony's outsized personality (or his magic touch for accumulating other people's money) so Olivia went one further-she had workers sink large orbs of light into the pond, held in place with stakes. The effect at night was mesmerizing only topped when, after drinking enough for an army, Anthony was found impaled and dead on one of the stakes. And everyone at the party was a suspect.
After Anthony's death, the police rule the incident an accident-but at least one budding true crime podcaster knows that there is more to this. As we then find out, his youngest daughter agrees with her, and she proceeds to drive Olive crazy with her theories. Their two older daughters and son don't really care if a crime was committed, as long as they get their share of dad's considerable loot. What they don't know is that Anthony, bored with the ease of using his hedge fund to accumulate vast wealth, has implemented a Ponzi Scheme just to make it more fun for himself, which was going to be revealed by investigators the day after the party. Turns out that Olivia also had a plan, she had been poaching from the household fund and banking it offshore for years, planning her escape from the marriage...but now she can't reveal her slush fund or it will go to pay off Anthony's victims. The whole debacle is such a trial for the poor formerly wealthy family!
Meanwhile, in a purgatory-like building somewhere, Anthony is assigned a cot in a large dormitory and is read the riot act. He is dead and to ascend the next plane, he must remember the exact circumstances of his demise and report it to the building supervisor. He will be aided in this through optional meditation classes (which he declines, of course) and by using a laptop to monitor his family, who hopefully will drop clues about his death so that he can leave for the new "life" that he knows will be his. Unfortunately, he finds out that no one in his family is telling the truth about anything.
The reader gets the story of Anthony's life and death from the perspective of every family member, as Anthony watches the action from his tiny cubicle somewhere in the great beyond. They are all deliciously bad and it's absolutely enjoyable to track the lengths of evil behavior each will stoop to, in search of the big monetary prize. So how DID Anthony die and who is responsible? I bet you'll be wrong.

I am on a terrible stretch of "I TRIED but just couldn't get into it" books, and am afraid this is yet another... I went in expecting darkly humorous and found irritating rich people behaving badly. Again. And I couldn't find myself caring about any of them. Again. I think I'm over this as a genre... I was drawn in by the fabulous cover and blurb, but just couldn't find my way into the story. I didn't care about Anthony, his death, his horrid wife, or the stalker-ish sleuth. This one was not at all for me...

Anthony is rich. Anthony is charming. Anthony has it all. Anthony is dead?! Now he's stuck in an afterlife processing center until he can remember how he died before he can move on to his eternal resting place. The police say it was an unfortunate accident, but not everyone is so sure.

This story is told from three alternating POVS: 1. Anthony in his processing center watches the action/his family from special screens. Unable to do anything, he spends his days watching his family and trying to remember how he died. 2. Anthony's wife, Olivia. She was already planning on leaving him after his fateful birthday party, but now her plans are spoiled, and she has to play the grieving widow while fending off her money hungry spoiled children. She also has to deal with the aftermath of Anthony's bad business dealings that have come to light and will cost the family millions in repayments to his clients. 3. A local woman from the village who is way too into true crime take it upon herself to investigate Anthony's death. She doesn't buy the "accidental death" theory and thinks one of the family members may be in on it.

I honestly hated each and every character in this book. Anthony and his family are all wealthy, entitled brats. The true crime lover is a bit over the top, and I really don't think she added anything to the story. The multiple POVs just aided in slowing down the story before we got to the rather unsatisfying ending. I think the most deserving ending would have been for everyone to have ended up dead or in jail, but alas, it was not to be.

Adding this one to the pile of "great premise, not so great execution" books. Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for sending me an ARC in exchange for my honest review.

This was a funny mystery with a unique spin, as we get to witness the deceased in the afterlife, trying to figure out who killed him while he watches his dysfunctional family. Fun idea

The story to this starts out pretty standard - a wealthy family, every member a terrible person, are throwing a party celebrating the patriarch’s 60th birthday. Said patriarch, Anthony, dies in a suspicious manner at the party’s end. This is where the story takes a (great, imo) turn. Anthony is one of our narrators, his story being told from purgatory where he’s stuck until he figures out just what happened to him. His wife, Olivia, is also a narrator, as is an online “sleuth” who wants to make it big by solving this case. This book is similar to Mackie’s “How to Kill Your Family” in that all of the characters are awful people, but I found that character style enjoyable in this one! The narrator seeking (understandable) revenge in HtKYF hated literally everything and everyone (fat people for daring to exist in public and people who vacation in European countries for annoying her, for example) and it zapped my enjoyment. In this one, maybe because we had multiple narrators and the purgatory twist, I had none of those frustrations regarding character development. What a fizzy delight! I had so much fun with this.

Thank you Netgalley, Bella Mackie and Harper Perennial and Paperbacks | Harper Perennial for the eArc of What a Way to Go

This is my first book by Bella Mackie and I have been missing out!

What A way to Go is a witty murder mystery told from 2 perspectives, one dead and one alive. This makes for a fun, witty approach to the classic murder mystery genre. It has some quite dark humour ( which I love ) and Bella does a fantastic job with her writing style to combine a balance between character development and plot direction. There are some great character, some likeable, some outrageously not. This is a sort of book Id happily re read /listen to multiple times.

This was also narrated by Kimberley Capero, Gabrielle Glaister, Colin Mace who did a fantastic job in being in-tune with the characters and made the narrative come to life even more


4.75 stars for Storygraph, 5 stars for another review sites

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this ARC!

What a Way to Go follows a family in the aftermath of the murder of the patriarch of the family in a particularly gruesome fashion. You get multiple POVs - including the recently deceased POV from limbo as he tries to figure out how he was murdered. I loved the perspective from the afterlife and was immediately drawn in. However, unfortunately, the book began to drag about a quarter of the way through, and it felt like a slog to get through the rest of the book. I don't know what it was exactly, but it just went on too long. I appreciated the dark humor in this book, but in the end, it just wasn't for me.

What a delightful romp through death with some truly terrible people. No one in this book is redeemable, yet it still manages to be a fun and compelling read where I really wanted to know what was going to happen next. A rich jerk dies at his entirely too ostentation birthday party and everyone in his awful family could have done it (not to mention the investors he has scammed out of their life savings) - only he has to figure out who actually did it to escape the tedious mundanity of the first phase of the afterlife. At the same time, an amateur sleuth and TikToker is sure she can figure out whodunit and will employ increasingly over the top tactics to gain information and views. Follow this horrible family and see where they end up - a quick and fun read with a satisfying conclusion.

I wasn't sure what to expect from this book, but it was an incredibly diverting read, with a saucy tone and genuinely intriguing mystery. Andrew is having his 60th birthday party, and as a top financier no expense has been spared, but he ends up dead at the end and now his family and a local true crime aficionado are trying to figure out whodunit. Andrew isn't the only one how gets skewered, as it seems like everyone from the ultra rich to the crime obsessed gets a licking in this, but the tone is so darkly humorous that I doubt anyone would mind. I don't want to say too much about all the plot devices, but this was so effective. It felt to me like reading Knives Out, which is a huge compliment!