Rating:

Bad Tourists, Bad Logic, Bad Story

Author: Caro Carver

Three friends, bonded by collective loss and trauma, take a fancy trip to the Maldives on the ten-year anniversary of the massacre that drew them together. Camilla, an influencer/fitness instructor in an open marriage lost her brother in the killing. Darcy lost her mentor/boyfriend, and Kate is the sole survivor of that fateful night. They all found each other later, online, and bonded over a shared conviction that the man who was caught and prosecuted was not the true killer.

Now in the Maldives, ostensibly celebrating Darcy’s divorce, they try to relax and forget the somber anniversary ahead.  Then, Camilla’s lover goes missing, a bad tourist starts creating havoc, and Kate gets flowers on the anniversary, showing that the real killer has found them and is taunting them again. Someone at this resort is not who they say they are. The killer is back, and perhaps he is ready to finish what was started so long ago.

I love the premise for Bad Tourists. I’ve always been a fan of vacation killer thrillers set in exotic and expensive locals. That was enough to tempt me into purchasing the book and immediately diving in, and the locale with its decadent food, sumptuous lodgings, crystalline waters, and personal butlers is truly to die for. The actual plot and characters though – not so much.

The friends are all so different, and not in a complimentary way. It is unbelievable that despite their continued search together for real answers that they would be this close, that they would be there to celebrate Darcy’s divorce and talk her off the ledge, constantly, about the potential custody battle for her son. They don’t mesh well, and the feelings between them are more ones of discomfort than familiarity. It’s artificial. It doesn’t ring true.

Once the suspicious bad tourist and his new (and very much abused) wife arrive on the island, the trio stops bickering among each other (and we get a little less of Camila’s annoying Instagram yoga antics) and the true dumbness begins. The friend’s confrontation plot is simply harassment / torture. They decide to wait until the suspect is in the isolated resort gym, tie him down, tell him everything they know, and threaten to hurt him until he confesses. A confession engendered under such duress (which they are dumb enough to try and record on their phones) would count for nothing, and the friends would find themselves in jail, not the supposed killer. How are they so dumb as to not know this? How do these people live and feed themselves? For all their bickering, could someone not have stopped this trainwreck?

But it gets worse . . . we have (drum roll please) a PLOT TWIST. If you thought the clever plot to get the supposed killer to confess was bad, then you’ll laugh around, rolling on the floor, at this twist. It makes zero sense, comes out of the blue in the story, and has all the believability and credibility of the Sharknado they made in space (and yes, that movie exists – although at least it knew it was bad and played into it). This book thinks its clever, with the killer in the end giving a full dialogue about what they have done and why and even bringing in a stupid AI subterfuge.

In the end, what started as a nice destination thriller / beach read becomes the kind of book you really want to throw across the room. The entire performance was phoned-in and fake, beginning to end, and the only reason Bad Tourists gets any stars from me is because of the luscious descriptions of the Maldives in the beginning. Illogical, ill-conceived, poorly executed, and sloppy. Not recommended.

 

– Frances Carden

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Frances Carden
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