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THIS IS NOT A GAME by Kelly Mullen

THIS IS NOT A GAME

by Kelly Mullen

Pub Date: April 8th, 2025
ISBN: 9780593854471
Publisher: Dutton

A testy Mackinac Island grandmother invites her granddaughter to a charity event that turns into a “pajama party from hell,” one that will test both of their very different skill sets to the limit.

Mimi MacLaine would love to see more of downstater Addie Paget, orphaned at 21 and then dumped by her fiancé, Brian Perry, who took all the credit for developing their wildly popular video game, Murderscape, and sold his company to Microsoft for big bucks that went to him alone. So why, Mimi asks, doesn’t Addie join her at a party thrown by her neighbor Jane Ireland, a wealthy widow who’s recently started an affair with her own son-in-law, Matthew Reed, who’s married to Jane’s outraged daughter, Alexandra? Jane’s invitation to celebrate with her “son-in-lover” might sound less tempting if Mimi told Addie that Jane is blackmailing her into coming and bidding top dollar on one of the items she’s auctioning off, so she doesn’t mention that. To the surprise of everyone but the reader, Jane is stabbed to death just as a historic snowstorm hits Mackinac, shutting down communications, preventing anyone from lowering the literal drawbridge over Jane’s moat, keeping the authorities from entering the place, and trapping the guests—most of whom are evidently being blackmailed as well—in their palatial digs until the “snowmageddon” abates. The upside is that Mimi and Addie have plenty of time to pool their resources, question the boilerplate suspects, one-up each other’s brightly witty remarks, puzzle over a truly ingenious series of clues, and solve the murder. Oops, make that murders.

Despite the title, this is absolutely a game from the first word to the last.