BWS: A Murder Most Camp Review

I have never been more obsessed with reading a murder mystery novel than when I read A Murder Most Camp. To get his obscene wealth back after being cut off, Mikey has to work at a camp and is put in charge of his twelve-year-old aunt and her friends who want nothing more than to solve the Camp Lore mystery: the disappearance of former camp counselor, Rose. A Murder Most Camp is by Nicolas Didomizio, author of Nearlywed, The Gay Best Friend, and Burn it All Down. It will be published by Trade Paperback Original on April 28, 2026. If you are a fan of murder mystery, camp fiction, Didomizio’s work, then get this book immediately! 

Summary

“Rustic Cabins. Lakefront Bonfires. A Painfully Hot LifeGuard. And A Murder? Summer Has Never Been This Camp.” (Backcover)

Mikey Hartford IV’s party lifestyle abruptly ends when his father cuts off his funds and changes the terms of his trust.  Instead of yachts, sex, and parties, he must make a positive contribution to the world before his thirtieth birthday or kiss his money, and dreams, goodbye. To get his trust back, Mikey is sent to Camp Lore with his twelve-year-old aunt, Annbelle. He thought surviving the rustic lifestyle and ramshackle living conditions and being roommates with a hot lifeguard was going to be the hard part. He is proven wrong when he becomes the Special Activity Coordinator and is put in charge of a group of campers who are obsessed with a local legend set at an abandoned cabin on the ground. Soon after they start investigating, he receives a death threat. Camp Lore has it all: rustic cabins, lakefront, hot lifeguard, and murder.

Overview

Author: Nicolas Didomizio

Publisher: Trade Paperback Original

Publish Date: April 28, 2026

Time Spent Reading: 6 Hours and 5 Minutes

Genre: Murder Mystery, Camp Fiction, Queer, M/M, Romance

Spice Rating

A Murder Most Camp has 2 Peppers out of 5 Peppers.

Explanation: There are multiple mentions of sex but it is glossed over.

What I Like

This has become one of my favorite books. It starts off slow, building tension as the reader is introduced to vapid, party lover Mikey, but it picks up speed as every chapter ends on a cliff hanger until the reader can’t put it down. I was captivated with the mystery of Rose. Who was she really: a victim or guilty party? What happened to her? Who was responsible? The story builds up to a plot twist that I did not see coming. 

I really enjoyed Mikey’s character. The reader starts off seeing him as irresponsible as he hides behind his sarcasm, movie quotes, and money. It makes his blooming relationship with his preteen aunt so precious. It was fun reading about him trying to control (and failing) a group of children who were obsessed with trying to solve a murder. If being the responsible adult to kids wasn’t hard enough, he was forced to be roommates with a hot lifeguard that was making him reevaluate his habit of pushing people away. Said lifeguard is also a suspect in his murder investigation which adds to the tension. 

There is much to enjoy with this book. The fast paced plot that slowly grows more suspenseful, the vibrant characters who are all hiding something, cliff hangers, and a group of adorable kids searching for a murderer. I stayed up till one in the morning unable to put the book down.

Rating

The BookWorm’s Snack rates A Murder Most Camp 5 out of 5 Stars.

I will read this book again!

If Rose wasn’t murder like everyone is telling Mikey, why is he receiving death threats for investigating? A Murder Most Camp by Nicolas Didomizio is a fun and suspenseful read that sucked me in with the mystery and amazing relationships between characters. The BookWorm’s Snack rates A Murder Most Camp 5 out of 5 stars. I will read this book again and I recommend you read it too!

Comment your favorite camp or murder mystery below!

Excerpt

“It’s my father’s camp.” Judy marches through the brush with the confidence of someone who’s lived in the wilderness their entire life. “And my work here is a labor of love. It has nothing to do with money.”

Mikey struggles to keep up with the two Gucci duffels wrapped around his shoulders like a straitjacket. “That’s quite evident.”

Judy chuckles. “Well, at least your aunt seems excited to be here.”

“Niece,” Mikey corrects. “I promised Annabelle we’d be ‘normal’ this summer and tell everyone I’m her uncle. So if you could keep our ‘nontraditional family situation’ between us, I’d appreciate it.”

Judy’s tone goes all aww in response, as if she just scrolled to a social media post of a puppy and a domesticated raccoon becoming best friends. “That’s really sweet of you, Mikey.”

“Sweet?”

“Yeah. It’s sweet.”

The thought of being perceived as sweet makes Mikey want to vomit into the nearest ditch — which is probably something he should talk to a therapist about — but now is clearly not the time to worry about the health of his self-image.

“Here we go,” Judy says as they step out from the thicket of trees into a minivillage of log cabins with a town square-like field in the middle. Dirt and weeds and a cluster of ashy old firepits surrounded by ottoman-sized rocks and peeling Adirondack chairs. “Right up here are the living quarters.”

Actually? Log cabin is far too generous a term. These are more like log sheds. Log shoeboxes. “I love this journey for the children,” Mikey says, gesturing to the Lincoln Log atrocities before him. “But where am I staying?”

Judy flashes a vaguely sadistic smile. “Cabin Twelve — all the way on the end.”

Mikey does a double take. There’s no way Judy just pointed at one of these glorified wooden storage bins and told him he’s going to be staying in it. “These are the staff cabins?”

“There are 12 cabins—”

“Of course. Just like the Bates Motel.”

“Huh?”

Even in the midst of his panic, Mikey can’t help himself. “You know … Psycho. When Norman Bates is checking Marion Crane in at the front desk and he’s all, ‘Twelve cabins, twelve vacancies.’”

“I’ve never seen it.”

As if Mikey wasn’t already alone enough in this conversation.

“Hitchcock’s greatest film ever — if not the greatest film ever — and you’ve never seen it? No wonder you and Sierra get along so well.”

Judy brushes him off and leads the way to Cabin Twelve. “Seven of the cabins are for campers and four of them are for staff.”

Mikey does the math in his head. “That only comes out to 11.”

Judy’s face drains of color and then tics at the edges — as if she just saw Norman Bates himself. “Right. Cabin One is permanently unoccupied.”

“Was someone murdered in there or something?” Mikey jokes.

But judging from how Judy’s shoulders tense at the question — and how the air between them thickens with a foreboding silence — he has to wonder if the answer is yes. Maybe that’s the real reason he’s here. Because Sierra convinced his father to send him into a literal death trap as part of a twisted plot for her to double her own Hartford inheritance.

“We just don’t use it,” Judy says. “Haven’t used it in over a decade.”

There’s a sketchiness to her voice that plucks a string of morbid curiosity in Mikey’s brain. Something definitely went down in that cabin. Probably not murder, of course … but something. “Why not?”