More Lippman, and Clothes for Mrs Blossom

Murder Takes a Vacation by Laura Lippman

published 2025

from this to this - the makeover

 

Post following on from a different Laura Lippman book, Another Thing to Fall.

Laura Lippman and Mrs Blossom and The Wire

Key character Mrs Blossom is a widow going on a trip to Europe: she is also a part-time operative for Tess Monaghan, the PI who has long been Lippman’s series character. Tess does feature in this book, but it is definitely Mrs B on the frontline.

I did enjoy this book hugely, but I have a warning for those who might read it like I did: I hated the first 50 pages or so, and felt surprised that Lippman had produced them. They seemed to be sample chapters for the worst kind of cozy mystery, with the cheery feisty Mrs B having her little adventures and complaints and good times and difficulties. She meets a charming man who sets all our alarm bells ringing and after predictable tourism descriptions along the way, ends up in Paris with a dead friend and a mystery to solve. So far so cliched.

But you have to have faith, because from here on in it got much better, and I liked it a lot. Twisty plot and foreign places. There was one real surprise for me, and one element of the solution that seemed so glaringly obvious from early on that I wasn’t sure what the author's intentions were.

Mrs Blossom  goes on a river cruise on the Seine – a boat trip always a great setting for a crime story (Christie’s Death on the Nile an all-time favourite) because changes of scene, varied people and lots of possibilities.

She pairs up with a splendid character called Danny, and it is very hard to work out exactly who he is and what his intentions are. But – we like this very much:

“I an excellent stylist and all good stylists are busybodies. I ask my clients a thousand questions in order to create the stories they want to tell.”

“Stories? Don’t you just pick out clothes?”

For once, Danny looked to be offended. “Clothes are narratives, our first chapters. Before we open our mouths, we have told people a dozen things about ourselves. Let me take you shopping tomorrow and prove to you I am who I say I am.”

Very Clothes in Books attitude.

Mrs B wore Allbirds shoes, as do I, though mine are lace-ups:

 

He praised her new shoes, orange Allbirds slip-ons. “Pretty,” he said, “yet perfect for walking these uneven London streets.

Mrs Blossom is changing. Early on we had this:

Mrs. Blossom liked clothes and had tended toward flowery prints even before her marriage to Harold Blossom. They both enjoyed the silly joke of it, Mrs. Blossom arrayed in blossoms. And since Harold’s death, her riotous dresses and blouses had felt like a connection to him.

Now, surveying the profusion of flowers and colors in her suitcase, she yearned for—what? Something different? To be someone different?

Danny makes Mrs B buy a caftan:

But what a caftan. It had broad vertical stripes, a plunging V-neckline, and a slit almost to midthigh, but only on the left side, which somehow seemed classier than two slits. The sleeves were a solid plum color with bands of gold at the wrist.

When I looked at pictures of caftans (or kaftans – both correct) I found such beautiful items. I think I had thought of them quite dismissively – ‘coverups’ - until I started really looking. This one:

 is from a fashion brand in India, and I quite wanted to buy it.

Danny says:

“Your look is so Ann Taylor…. But “you should be dressing like Elizabeth Taylor.” Yes indeed – she was queen of the caftan.

These are proper makeover scenes – something I love nearly as much as a good mystery.

So all-in-all, an excellent book and I very much hope there will be a series.

I found a very good review of the book on Amazon, which I recommend as helpful. The reader felt very much as I did, and she draws out many of the good things from the book.