Beach Reads: Laura Lippman's "Murder Takes a Vacation"

You may know Laura Lippman for her Tess Monaghan series of mysteries. In her latest novel, Murder Takes a Vacation, we meet Muriel Blossom, who once worked with Tess. Now retired and widowed, she takes her first trip to Europe, which promptly goes awry. Lippman discusses her new work, which The New York Times calls "a rollicking adventure of the highest order."

Alison Stewart: You're listening to All Of It on WNYC. I'm Alison Stewart. Writer Laura Lippman is the internationally best-selling, award-winning author of the Tess Monaghan series. In her latest novel, Murder Takes a Vacation, Tess is not the main character. Muriel Blossom or Mrs. Blossom is. She's a character who began as Tess's unassuming but invaluable assistant back in 2008. Now in her late 60s, widowed, and a grandmother, Mrs. Blossom comes into a sudden windfall after finding a stray lottery ticket, and she decides to spend some of the winnings on a river cruise in Paris.

At the airport, getting ready to board the plane to Paris, Mrs. Blossom notices the unexpected attention she receives from Alan, a handsome, flattering man who insists on helping her with her luggage and taking care of her every need. He's a bit too nice. She had been warned about people taking advantage of her because of her winnings, but Mrs. Blossom has a tendency to ignore what she really doesn't want to see, so she pushes aside any suspicions, and because of that, just as she begins her Parisian adventure, she unknowingly is thrust into a world of telltale art, murder and reinventing herself in her 60s.

The novel is titled Murder Takes a Vacation. It's on our summer beach reads list. It could be part of your summer challenge. The book published in 2025. Hi, Laura.

Laura Lippman: Hi. It's nice to talk to you.

Alison Stewart: It is so nice to talk to you as well. Mrs. Blossom was somewhat of a minor character in your other books. What made you realize she deserved her own novel?

Laura Lippman: I think that part of it was that I felt like I hadn't really done right by her. I had received at least one email complaint that her first depiction was a little bit ageist. The funny thing is, in 2008, Mrs. Blossom and I were almost 20 years apart, and now I'm almost as old as she is.

I think I enjoyed the challenge of writing about someone who is more or less my age in not the same circumstances, but somewhat similar circumstances. She's a widow. I got divorced a couple of years ago. We're both living slightly different lives than we thought we were going to be living in our 60s, and I had a lot to say about what it's like to be a woman in her 60s moving through the world.

Alison Stewart: She winds up entangled in an international art crime. A heist, sort of. We'll leave it there. How did you choose for that storyline for Mrs. Blossom?

Laura Lippman: Part of this is I was inspired by watching the movie Charade for the fifth or sixth time, which is about people hunting for an object and a woman who is insisting she doesn't have the object, doesn't even know what it is, doesn't know where this money is. I'm a docent at the American Visionary Art Museum here in Baltimore, so I've been spending a lot more time thinking about museums.

I noticed probably, felt like around 2021, 2022, more and more stories about items in either museums or people's private collections that had really kinky provenance. It's a really interesting ethical question of, to whom does art belong when the art has been taken from its country of origin without permission? I just thought that was a pretty timely story to tell.

Alison Stewart: You being a docent is the most exciting thing I've heard all day.

Laura Lippman: It's so fantastic. It's the best thing I've done for myself. I entered the program three years ago. I just did a tour last week. I love every minute of it.

Alison Stewart: It's part of my dream at one point to be a docent at a museum.

Laura Lippman: One of the things I've been telling people, even though I'm in my 60s, but I have a teenage daughter, so I live this weird split life. I was like, "I am living my best old-lady life. I travel a lot. I'm a docent. I spend a lot of time in New York going to theater." It's like, what's not to love? I'll probably be a little sad when my daughter goes to college, but I'm ready.

Alison Stewart: I'm taking a page from you. My guest is award-winning writer Laura Lippman. We're discussing her new mystery, Murder Takes a Vacation. The book dips in and out of this whodunit suspense, but it's also about girlhood and motherhood and womanhood in general. What made you want to discuss these issues, and how did you balance the whodunit with the bigger picture issues around womanhood?

Laura Lippman: I think initially I was starting with just the idea that, "Oh, wouldn't it be fun to write a really straight up Agatha Christie cozy, classic Murder on the Nile type book?" I had no idea how hard that was going to be. I was reminded frequently during the writing of this book the old saying, dying is easy, comedy is hard, and the cozy is a much tougher form than some of the hard-boiled noir that I've done in the past, because you just can't drop a body every time you need to create suspense. It's a little more proper.

It's a self-contained world, and you can't rely on an unexpected episode of violence to keep the story going. Once I cut inside Mrs. Blossom's head, I mentioned that we're alike, we're also different. In some ways, she was inspired by my sister and my mom. The idea of a woman who is not very worldly, who hasn't traveled a lot, who's shy and self-conscious for various reasons. She likes herself. She really does like herself, but she's aware that she moves through a world where, when she is seen, people are often quite cruel about her because she's overweight.

That was part of the original character, and I wanted to keep it. The more I wrote about Mrs. Blossom, the deeper I got into her mindset. It was as much a novel about her coming into herself. It's very meta. She's learning to be the main character.

Alison Stewart: You're right. She's used to being unnoticed.

Laura Lippman: Yes.

Alison Stewart: Fading into the background.

Laura Lippman: Absolutely.

Alison Stewart: She learns how to change at one point. At one point, she's va-va-voom in her caftan.

Laura Lippman: She is. Such a funny thing to say about a character I created, Mrs. Blossom is sexy, much sexier than I am. I have no problem saying that. I just had this sense of her as I was writing about her, that her sincerity makes her very attractive to people. The people who meet her understand immediately that what you see is what you get. She's kind, she's conscientious, she cares about people, she listens to people. She has no deceit in her. She's really just the loveliest person, and because of that, people are drawn to her.

Alison Stewart: Does that mean that that's a source of tension in the book, because she is so honest, because she is so forthcoming?

Laura Lippman: It makes her vulnerable. The people in her life who love her the best are constantly trying to remind her, "Look, you're a widow, you've come into money. You have to watch out for fortune hunters. You have to be more suspicious of people. She really struggles with that. She tends to see the good in everyone.

Alison Stewart: There's a moment when she assumes that someone who's been abrupt with her, that she must have done something to provoke it. What did you want to show about-- I guess it's self-blame or her belief that, "I did something wrong. It's got to be me."

Laura Lippman: In addition to being a whodunit, this is a book about a woman with a secret and a secret she's never been able to tell anyone. It's something that causes her a lot of guilt and shame, and she needs to come to terms with it. If anything, that's the bigger mystery in the book is, what is the secret that she's carrying with her? What could she have done, this lovely, nice lady, what could she have to be guilty about? I think that is something that's on her mind almost through the entire book, up until the end of the book. The book ends with her finally finding someone that she can talk to about the worst thing she ever did.

Alison Stewart: She has a long, layered friendship that spans decades. How did you want to capture that push and pull of such an old bond with a friend?

Laura Lippman: In some ways, I think that's a little bit of a fantasy for me because I don't have a friend going back to grade school. I haven't been able to maintain a friendship over that many decades, although I'm still very close to a friend that I met at summer camp. We met when we were 15, and we have stayed close. We have led very different lives in different places, and we've had to work hard to maintain the friendship. There were some peaks and valleys along the way, but last summer, when I was probably still in revisions on this book, there I was with my friend of 50 years at her daughter's wedding. That was a good role model, my friend Nancy

Alison Stewart: What's important to you in a friendship?

Laura Lippman: Kindness and loyalty. I expect my friends to be nice to me. Does that sound weird? I think some people have friends who are mean and sarcastic. I expect friends to hold me up, to be the people I can trust when things are going really badly.

Alison Stewart: I don't like people who tease.

Laura Lippman: Teasing, I'm guilty of it, but I have come to understand that it's probably always a really bad idea. Nobody likes to be teased, so why do we tease one another? Maybe within certain relationships, there's a little bit of teasing that works, but for the most part, no, it's horrible.

Alison Stewart: Has your view of friendship changed as you've gotten older?

Laura Lippman: I would say that what has changed, and I think the book reflects this, is that I really do think friendship might be more important than romance. In an ideal life, you get to have both. I've had romance in my life because I've been married twice, but I always think about that line from the end of the film about a boy. It's like one person's not enough. You need backup. My friendships really, first, during the pandemic, which happened to completely parallel my separation and divorce, my friendships got me through.

Friendship is, in the end, more important to Mrs. Blossom than romance. She's worried about making new friends and expanding her world. She realizes she needs backup, that as great as Eleanor is as a friend, she needs other people in her life and people with different interests.

Alison Stewart: I'm speaking with writer Laura Lippman. We're discussing her new mystery, Murder Takes a Vacation, where a lethal art heist disrupts what was supposed to be an idyllic Parisian vacation. Mrs. Blossom, she's in her late 60s. When you thought about that age and you thought about the way it's been written, what did you not want to write about a 68-year-old lady?

Laura Lippman: I'm a 66-year-old lady, and I know that in my head I'm not that different than I was in my 40s or my 50s, maybe even my 30s. I just don't think we're ever old to ourselves. I like to grab that title. I love to tell people I'm an old lady because they're like, "Oh, you're not." My therapist told me I'm not an old lady, and I'm like, "Yes, I'm an old lady." One of the things I've talked a lot about on this book tour, something I figured out writing this book is, a book, a narrative, does have a natural three-act structure.

In the third act, opportunity and possibility narrows because you're moving toward this conclusion, and certain suspects have been jettisoned, and certain things cannot happen because of the things that have already happened. This is practically in some ways the last line of the book. I think in life, your opportunities can keep broadening. Your life can get bigger as you age. If you're lucky enough to be healthy and have the financial resources you need to live as you would like to. There's no reason for life to narrow in our 60s and 70s. I've really embraced that idea. Again, I already said this, but I'm having more fun right now than I've ever had. I'm just having a blast.

Alison Stewart: It's interesting about Mrs. Blossom because people in the book are getting second chances and third chances. How does Mrs. Blossom have to start again, and what's challenging for her starting again as a widow, especially?

Laura Lippman: This is a woman who has spent her entire adult life as a nurturer or a caretaker. She married very young and had a very happy marriage to a man who died pretty unexpectedly. She was only 58 when her husband died. She goes more or less straight from there to caring for her granddaughters and being essential as a caretaker, but now her family is moving overseas. They don't need her in that role anymore. She's not invited to go along. She really is presented with a blank page, like, "Who are you going to be now? You're not taking care of anyone but yourself now. How do you keep your life from feeling small and empty?"

I've mentioned my mom once here. My mom, who died last summer, was a great role model to me in the 10 years that she was widowed. My dad died in 2014, and my mom had the busiest, most active life. She was always making friends wherever she was. She volunteered at a library. When she lived in a small seaside town in Delaware, everybody knew her. She eventually moved to Baltimore to live in a continuing care community, made a ton of friends right away. I really was inspired by how my mom lived her life.

Alison Stewart: What inspired you? What was it about your mom, the way she approached her life?

Laura Lippman: The fact that she was always doing new things.

Alison Stewart: New things.

Laura Lippman: The fact that she was making new friends. My mom, she would sign up to go to the Oriole Games, she would sign up to go to theater. I took a very similar trip to the one that is portrayed in this book, and when I came back, my mom, who at the time would have been 91, said, "Could I do a trip like that?" I said, "Yes, you could. There were people with nowhere close to your mobility who were on this trip. These trips are laded in terms of how much mobility you need."

It had actually been our hope, which we didn't get to do, to take a three-generation cruise, my mother, my daughter, and I. Her mind was always open. The final weeks of my mother's life began when she tried to get out of bed after Joe Biden's speech and realized she was in a lot of pain from a compressed vertebrae. I was like, "You stayed up till-- [laughs]?"

Alison Stewart: On Joe Biden's speech.

Laura Lippman: "You're a better woman than I am. I was probably in bed by 10 o'clock, Mom." She followed a lot of tennis players. She cared about that. I got so many condolence notes that mentioned her rigorous reading of the newspaper every morning. She cared so much about the Orioles. I loved that. The games were always on when I went to visit her during the summer. It's a cliche, but my mom was really living her best life.

Alison Stewart: She sounds terrific. Why did you choose Paris as your location?

Laura Lippman: Why did I choose Paris? I don't remember. That's so funny. I think part of it was that it seemed what Mrs. Blossom would have chosen. It's mentioned in the book that originally she's scared to go to someplace where she doesn't speak the language. There really was a Joan Mitchell show. Joan Mitchell, the abstract expressionist, who's a very important artist to Mrs. Blossom. There was a show in Paris, probably it was March 2023, I think. I was like, "Oh, that's what she would do. She would go there to see those paintings, and that would be enough to get her to overcome her fear of a place where she doesn't speak the language."

Also, I think it had to be a place where she felt a little bit at sea. I think going to London wouldn't have been as overwhelming for her. I did want her to take on a big challenge.

Alison Stewart: I'm going to ask you to read a page from the book. It starts on 135 because Mrs. Blossom finds herself on the receiving end of compliments she struggles to accept. Sometimes she thinks they're remarks about her size. Could you read a little bit of this, and we can talk about it on the other side?

Laura Lippman: Sure. She's talking to a mysterious man named Danny, who always seems to be around when things go wrong for her. Danny asks her, "'Why are you so obsessed with your size?' 'Because the world is obsessed with my size.' Mrs. Blossom's words burst forward with a vehemence that surprised her, but she couldn't stop herself. She realized she didn't want to stop herself, 'Because strangers offer me diet tips and suggest that I think about having the salad with dressing on the side.

Because people say 'Good for you,' and give me a thumbs up in the gym. Because since I was in grade school, people have told me what a pretty face I have and talked about my dainty hands and feet as if I didn't know what that was code for. Because when we went to see Fantasia on a class field trip everyone looked at me when the hippos danced.' Danny looked confused. 'What is it code for, dainty hands and feet?' 'Since my hands and feet are small, people seem to think it means all of me could be small if I just tried.

I did try when I was a teenager. If I hadn't, my mother probably would have locked me in a room and fed me bread and water for the rest of my life. I ate as she told me to eat, but I never lost weight. God, when Harold proposed, I couldn't get out of my parents' house fast enough. We were married three months after we met, and we were very happy, despite her dire predictions. Mary in haste.' Danny said, 'I hate to take her side, but she had a point.' 'My marriage was wonderful.' 'Always?' 'Always,' she lied."

Alison Stewart: That was Laura Lippman reading from Murder Takes a Vacation. What did you want us, the reader, to understand about Mrs. Blossom in that moment?

Laura Lippman: One of the things that's funny, because people have been hesitant to talk about this on the book tour, Mrs. Blossom, is fat, and that's a word that I use consciously because I've been following the work of Virginia Sole-Smith and Aubrey Gordon, Kate Mann, who was nominated for a National Book Award for Unshrinking, who've really encouraged people to see that as an objective, factual word, that even though it's been weaponized and used unkindly, they're hopeful for a world in which we can just see this as an objective term.

Some people are fat. Mrs. Blossom happens to be fat. No one has wanted to say this word to me. Some people say ample, some people say plus-sized. I wanted to write a book about a woman who is comfortable in her own skin, but knows the culture at large doesn't approve of what she looks like. What is that like to have the confidence to like yourself and to understand that, no, she was forced on diets as a kid and they didn't work, and so she's left that all behind. She doesn't try to change herself.

She had a great romantic marriage to a man who loved her as she was, but she can just feel all the judgment, and it's a kind of bigotry, and she's aware of it. She tries very hard not to talk about it, but she finally just lets it fly in that scene.

Alison Stewart: You're going to have to read to find out, Murder Takes a Vacation. Before we let you go, we wanted to ask you about your five recommendations for our summer reading challenge. A classic you've been meaning to get to.

Laura Lippman: I did this backwards, which is, I gave recommendations to everyone else.

Alison Stewart: Go for it.

Laura Lippman: I've read all the books on my list. I really encourage people to read A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith, which I think would be considered one of the great classics of American literature if it had been centered on a male character. It tends to be regarded as YA. It's a brilliant, brilliant book, and it does not get enough attention.

Alison Stewart: A book about New York?

Laura Lippman: Emma Who Saved My Life by Wilton Barnhardt. Very funny novel set in the '70s and '80s, about a young guy who's trying to break into acting and also just trying to find his dream girl.

Alison Stewart: Memoir, biography?

Laura Lippman: Lorne by Susan Morrison.

Alison Stewart: Oh, it's good.

Laura Lippman: Oh, it's so good.

Alison Stewart: Really good.

Laura Lippman: Yes, terrific, terrific book, and just a really smart book. Has brilliant structure and just really solid reporting. I loved it.

Alison Stewart: A book published in 2025?

Laura Lippman: I picked Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams, which is the story of her time at Facebook. Boy, I wish that book had come out in, actually, 2023. I think more people needed to know what was going on with their social media.

Alison Stewart: Our last 10 seconds, Rabbit and Juliet?

Laura Lippman: Yes, by Rebecca Stafford. Full transparency, she's a friend, and I blurbed the book, but it was a terrific YA debut. The kind of book that I want my daughter to read about the trouble that girls can get into.

Alison Stewart: Yes. Laura Lippman, thanks a lot.

Laura Lippman: Thanks, a pleasure as always.