Reviews with content warning for Gun violence - Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide

Reviews tagging 'Gun violence'

Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes

21 reviews

angorarabbit's review against another edition

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adventurous funny lighthearted mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

TLDR: Very good Golden Age Style Mystery with a few twists.

I was pleasantly surprised by this mystery novel. The blurb promises entertainment which is delivered mostly in puns in the first half of the book. Then Mr Holmes gets to work with an intricately plotted how-they done-it novel.

The forward is a bit tiresome, but necessary to understanding the setting. The rest of the narrative is an omnipresent narrator and a mix of journal entries from the main character to his patron, reports, and letters. The later being indicated by chapter headings. The style is down to earth with enough description to fill in the blanks but not be flowery. The action is pretty easy to follow and main characters are easy to differentiate.

The characterisation was okay, the minor characters suffered in particular. Main characters were somewhat stereotyped though they acted consistent with their characters throughout the novel. The first part of the novel was rather under peopled though filling a school like it should be is always tricky for both the writer and the reader.

In true Golden Age fashion all the would be deletees were nasty humans. I thought two of them deserved an Orient Express experience to tell the truth. I anticipate there were after the funeral parties. The setting is 1950’s America so at least the author didn’t have to worry about the modern banes of deleters existence DNA and mobile phones. Though one deletion method was old fashioned, the other two were quite novel.

The postscript does make me wonder if the punishment will fit the crime.

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madalynn_owens's review

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adventurous funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.25

This was a really interesting and unique book! I could really really see this working as an 8-10 part mini series and thus was a bit lengthy at some points.
I found myself enjoying one of the MCs vastly more than the other 2 simply due to the time spent with them.
There is also a weird I think thinly veiled anti-abortion tiny side plot for about 3 pages that feels out of place but maybe I’m just misreading it.

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sylvanskezelene's review against another edition

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dark funny tense slow-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.0

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elenilkd's review against another edition

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adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.75

A great mix of dark humor, thriller, and a little Hogwarts-esque fantasy! A little slow and predictable sometimes, but I can appreciate the base idea here, especially as a fan of horror and thriller comedies.

Kind of wish the end was a little more flushed out though. I’m glad to see the three characters reunite, but was almost too happy and predictable of an ending for what’s overall such a dark comedy. Was the love interest really necessary if it wasn’t going to be fully addressed or developed? Could the Dean really not see his own death coming? How many students are offered to come back as faculty like that?

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flower_mail's review

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adventurous dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? No

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asimpson7's review against another edition

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adventurous challenging dark funny mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? It's complicated
Diverse cast of characters? N/A
Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated

4.0

This was a good read. Very strange and I often was very confused. Even at the end I was confused. But I liked the progression of their plans and that we had a progression of the stories of each person. I also liked that each of their stories intertwined and that not all of their deletions worked. But the one that didn’t work felt right. I would like to know what happened to the Dean at the end. But other than that it was an entertaining book and one unlike any I’ve ever read before.

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bigheadcam's review

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adventurous dark funny lighthearted medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? It's complicated
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.25

Murder Your Employer is like if Harry Potter was written for the macabre, in a good way. It's a fun story with some interesting (if at times, simple) characters as well as a fantastical setting in the form of McMasters and the U.S. in the 1950s.

It's worth mentioning that I think part of the reason that this book takes place in this time period is because quite a few of the methods mentioned in this book around "getting away with murder" would not be possible due to today's surveillance state and much more accurate and sensitive forensic technologies. Still, a good romp through hypothetical murders and the fantasy by proxy of an evil employer being shown the door!

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