Killer Vacations: 7 Mystery Books About Travel

Don't let the culprits get away on these getaways.

Covers of "The Midnight Feast" by Lucy Foley, "Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone" by Benjamin Stevenson, and " The Spare Man" by Mary Robinette Kowal

When it’s 5 degrees outside and the cold hurts your face, it’s natural to think of hot luxurious places. But sometimes a vacation may not be in the cards…

Luckily, mystery books can help whisk you away from the ice and snow to faraway lands full of sun and warmth. Here are seven mystery books about travel!

Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies

Every Time I Go On Vacation, Someone Dies

By Catherine Mack

Eleanor Dash’s literary career took off after she fictionalized her adventures in Europe as a young woman. Years later, with many bestselling books under her belt, she’s now on a book tour of Italy with a group of her best fans (and to her chagrin, her stalker).

She’s plagued by her once lover, Connor Smith, who she wrote as the main character in her series. Now she’s planning on killing him off in the hopes that he’ll get out of her life once and for all.

But someone wants to take Connor out for real, leaving a trail of bodies behind them. Can Eleanor figure out who wants to kill Connor before anyone else is murdered?

It’s the first in the Vacation Mystery series with book two, No One Was Supposed to Die at This Wedding, coming out later this year.

killers-of-certain-age_cover-image

Killers of a Certain Age

By Deanna Raybourn

Billie, Mary Alice, Helen and Natalie appear to be a group of four typical elderly women on an all-expenses paid cruise. But they are actually four well-trained assassins on a company-paid cruise for their retirement.

Except someone wants to kill them, and all signs point to their organization, the Museum.

Now the four women have to figure out why their former employer is working to take them out, using the very skills that their employer trained into them over 40 years of service.

The sequel Kills Well with Others comes out later this year.

The Midnight Feast

The Midnight Feast

By Lucy Foley

It was supposed to be the dazzling opening of the luxury resort The Manor. People were supposed to brag for ages about being there that weekend.

Instead, on Sunday morning, guests will only remember the tragedy and the wreckage: something went wrong that night and now somebody is dead.

Told from different points of view, readers learn that the Manor has a dark past that all the paint, champagne, and crystals cannot smudge away.

Murder on Lake Garda

Murder on Lake Garda

By Tom Hindle

Bartender and former journalist Robyn is not sure why she and her boyfriend came to the wedding.

Her boyfriend, Toby Heywood, is an aspiring bar owner that comes from an ultra-wealthy family that look down on his chosen vocation. Despite their estrangement, Toby insists that he has to be at his brother’s wedding, even if it’s on the luxurious island, Castello Fiore, in the middle of Lake Garda.

It’s clear that no peace or detente has been established in the family; old secrets and past harm bubble up to the surface like champagne. And then someone is found stabbed to death.

While Robyn is the principal point of view, the narrative shifts to different characters.

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone

By Benjamin Stevenson

Family reunions can be killer, but this family reunion turns out to be a reunion of killers.

Ernest Cunningham, the narrator of the book, explains that everyone in his family has killed someone. He describes how each family member came to be a murderer, leading up to the ski resort family reunion.

When a giant snowstorm traps them, they realize that someone amongst them is a killer out for the family. Can Ern figure out whodunnit before more bodies hit the floor?

For fans of the series, there’s Everyone on This Train is a Suspect and the Christmas mystery Everyone This Christmas Has a Secret.

The Sicilian Inheritance

The Sicilian Inheritance

By Jo Piazza

When Sara Marsala’s great-aunt passes away, she’s surprised to find that she left her a plane ticket and a mission to reclaim a plot of land in their ancestral town in Sicily. Her great-aunt Rosie believed that her grandmother, Serafina, had been murdered over the land and asks Sara to investigate.

At loose ends after the failure of her restaurant and her marriage, Sara decides to go to Sicily to try to fulfill her great-aunt’s mission. However, it’s clear that there are some people who want the past to stay the past—and will do anything to keep it that way.

As a bonus, Jo Piazza has a podcast of the same name about her family’s real legend, detailing the story of her great grandmother who was murdered before she could emigrate to the United States with the rest of her children and husband.

the spare man

The Spare Man

By Mary Robinette Kowal

We’ve got stories of travel to Italy and others to snowy mountains. Now we’ve got space travel.

The Spare Man has been described as Dashiell Hammett’s The Thin Man in space.

Tesla Crane, a famous billionaire engineer, is on her honeymoon space cruise to Mars with her detective husband, Shal Steward. They are trying to keep a low profile so they can avoid being ambushed by the press.

But when a body seems to appear from thin air, the authorities think that Shal has something to do with it. Now Tesla and her robot dog Gimlet have to clear her new husband’s name, while dealing with the ever-widening telecommunications gap between Earth and the ship, her PTSD, and her disability.

Featured image: Autumn Studio/Unsplash