There’s no sun or sex or even very much sea. The new cover photo and tagline of “Sun, sea, sex, murder” are very misleading. The trouble I have is that I don’t think the new promotional material works for this book at all. But seeing how his writing has developed over the years, this one doesn’t live up to the standards of his books today so I don’t quite see the need for a re-release. Everybody is becoming a fan of John Marrs these days and it’s definitely well deserved, so we are all bound to revisit his earlier work at some point. But I do think that it should have stayed in the past. The Vacation is a good book, especially as one of Marr’s earlier releases, and it certainly showcases his writing talent. Had it been cut down by 100 pages, I wouldn’t haven’t grown so tired of the story and been able to appreciate the characters much more. And then I realised that the book is 496 pages long, which is just too much for a book like this. However, I did feel like the story was really dragging at various points. There were two characters that I especially felt connected to, but I could picture them all quite vividly which isn’t something all authors can do very well. And just for a little while, their lives become entangled.Īs with most of Marrs books, there are a lot of characters to get used to (maybe just a few too many this time), but he describes his characters so well that it doesn’t take long to get to know them all. Multi-layered and character-driven, The Vacation is a well-developed story about a large group of characters whose paths meet by accident.

The vacation by john marrs