Publication Date: October 7, 2025
With the bite of The White Lotus and the family dynamics of Succession, What a Way to Go is an uproarious and satirical whodunnit about people behaving badly—and perhaps finally getting their just deserts—from the author of the mega-bestseller How to Kill Your Family.
When Anthony Wistern died, he expected his family to make a bit more of a fuss about it. Especially after he’d died in such dramatic fashion: skewered by an exorbitantly expensive party decoration in the private lake of his Cotswold’s manor house at his sixtieth birthday party, surrounded by the people for whom he most loved flaunting his wealth. And now even death has disappointed him; instead of Heaven or Hell or an empty void, Anthony’s soul is stuck in a strange kind of purgatory while he tries to figure out who killed him—before he is finally released from this interminably exasperating waiting room.
Olivia Wistern knows she should probably try to appear at least a little upset about her husband’s death, but she honestly can’t be bothered. As usual, he’s left behind an unbelievable mess—financially, socially, personally—that she’s going to have to clean up. Their four grown children will be of absolutely no help; she shouldn’t have let them become so hopelessly spoiled. And is it just her, or are the police and their “murder investigation” intentionally getting underfoot? There’s no shortage of people who hated Anthony, so can’t they look for a killer somewhere other than her house?
While the Wisterns are more concerned about the fate of their money than the fate of their patriarch, one internet sleuth is highly interested in Anthony Wistern’s death. She isn’t about to let the opportunity to create a sure-to-be smash true crime podcast pass by, not when the murder was committed mere yards away, and not when she has her own history with the victim. She’ll make her name and her own fortune off Anthony’s death one way or another, whatever it takes. . . .
Author Bella Mackie flips the script on the traditional “whodunit” concept by including the dead man’s perspective.
What a Way to Go introduces the Wistern family as they are hosting a lavish birthday celebration for patriarch Anthony Wistern. From his wife, Olivia, down to his four children, they all share some rather unlikable qualities as they focus on materialistic things.
The author uses a mix of humorous satire to reveal Anthony’s death and subsequent arrival in some sort of limbo, where he must find out the details about who killed him. Meanwhile, chaos ensues as his secrets come to light.
While the Wistern family is trying to patch the holes left behind, a true crime podcaster is hot on the trail of Anthony’s death and ready to tell the real story in all its ugly glory.
What a Way to Go features an entitled family that gets a nasty dose of reality.
Bella Mackie‘s debut novel How to Kill Your Family was a #1 Sunday Times bestseller and spent forty-seven weeks in the top ten in paperback. She is also the author of one work of nonfiction, Jog On, which was a Sunday Times bestseller as well, and has written for the Guardian, Vogue, and Vice. In 2023 she judged the Women’s Prize for Fiction, and her work has been shortlisted for the British Book Awards. Mackie lives in London.
