What A Way to Go Book Review: Rich, Dead, and Detestable
Sneha Jaiswal (Twitter | Instagram)
A super-rich man dies at his outrageously lavish birthday party, impaled by a piece of party décor. But was it an accident, suicide, or murder? ‘What A Way to Go’ by Bella Mackie is a murder mystery that straddles both life and the afterlife, as billionaire Anthony Wistern wakes up in a bureaucratic facility for the newly dead. To ascend to his “forever after” stage, he must remember how he died, but all he recalls is having a bloody good time and doing drugs before dinner.
Bella Mackie tells ‘What A Way to Go’ through shifting POVs, mainly Anthony Wistern, his wife Olivia, and a nosy true-crime junkie known only as “The Sleuth,” who takes it upon themselves to crack Anthony’s murder. For nearly a hundred pages, I pictured the Sleuth as a young man, which shouldn’t matter, but it make me imagine some encounters in a very different light. Regardless of the gender, the character is a bit of a nutter.
While the cops immediately declare Anthony’s death an ‘accident’, the sleuth and a few others think otherwise. The suspect list is long: his wife Olivia, his mistress Lainey, a disgruntled business partner, and several bitter rivals who had reason to want him gone. Then there are the Wistern children, three daughters and a son, each one vile, selfish, and happily living off daddy’s fortune, making them just as likely culprits. Like many murder mysteries, Olivia, the wife, emerges as the prime suspect, though she seems furious at the fact that he “ruined” the lavish party she had so carefully planned, stealing the spotlight in death. So to the reader, it doesn’t sound like she could’ve finished him off.
The Sleuth’s POV is both annoying and slightly entertaining, as it’s clear she’s a total amateur relying only on her “gut feeling” about who might have killed Anthony. She even starts to vlog and live-stream her “investigation,” gradually gaining a steady following for her channel and conspiracy theories. The Sleuth embodies the ever-growing community of true-crime enthusiasts who believe they can take it upon themselves to solve murders.
‘What A Way to Go’ is one of those novels where practically nobody is likable, not even the investigator (the sleuth). Or at least I couldn’t care much about anybody, least of all Anthony himself, who is such a huge prick, his POV shouldn’t have gotten the kind of space the author gives him. The only thing truly interesting in the novel is how Anthony is forced to figure out how he died in the afterlife. This supernatural element reminded me of ‘The Seven Moons of Maali Almeida‘ by Shehan Karunatilaka, which follows a journalist’s ghost investigating his own murder case after he gets stuck in a similar afterlife facility.
The afterlife facility in ‘What A Way to Go’ becomes a humbling experience for Anthony, where for the first time his wealth is worthless and he’s forced to play by the rules. Detestable as he is, there’s a certain satisfaction in watching him flail after death, trapped in what feels like a dreary boarding school for the dead. Here, residents can only progress once they piece together how they died, a process meant to grant closure before being shipped off to their forever-after. Unfortunately, Anthony cannot remember a thing, and constantly makes the wrong guess as to who killed him, which makes for a comical element in the tale.
While not ‘unputdownable’, ‘What A Way to Go’ ties its mystery together with a sensible, satisfying revelation about Anthony’s death, finally putting to the mystery to rest under comical circumstances. I didn’t feel cheated as a reader, like ‘Everyone in my Family Has Killed Someone’, which is a very entertaining mystery told through the POV of a crime writer, but ends with a vibe-killing reveal.
Rating: 3 on 5 stars.
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