★★★★☆ How to Get Away with Murder, by Rebecca Philipson
An unconventional, twisty little murder mystery
How to Get Away with Murder
Rebecca Philipson
An unconventional, twisty little murder mystery
How to Get Away with Murder is not just the name of Rebecca Philipson‘s debut mystery novel -- it’s also the name of a fictional self-help book by someone who calls himself Denver Brady. Brady’s book comes to the attention of DI Samantha (Sam) Hansen when it is found near the body of murdered 14-year-old Charlotte Mathers. In his book, Brady claims to be a successful serial killer who has murdered more people than any other serial killer and remained uncaught. The book describes several murders he has done and describes his methods.
Sam is on partial medical leave because she had a breakdown not long ago, and her psychologist thinks she is not yet fully recovered. She begs to be put on the Mathers case. Her superior officer has misgivings about throwing Sam into such a stressful, high stakes investigation in her still mentally fragile state. He consents to allowing her a subordinate role in the investigation. Sam’s job is to track down Denver Brady. Sam of course realizes that the presence of the book near the body is not proof that Brady had anything to do with the murder. However, even if Brady didn’t murder Charlotte, he is, by his own words, a multiple murderer, who needs to be investigated and caught.
I am not, generally speaking, a fan of the mystery genre. The artificiality puts me off. A conventional mystery must follow a whole long list of stupid rules. (See Benjamin Stevenson‘s Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone for a mystery novel built around this fact). But in How to Get Away with Murder Philipson‘s first goal seems to have been to write a good novel with, especially towards the end, a bunch of clever plot twists. I’m not sure if she followed all the rules, and honestly, I don’t care.
It is a debut novel, and alas, it shows. For instance, there’s a plot twist at 80% that Philipson teases repeatedly throughout earlier chapters. After a while I wanted to shout at her, “Would you cut that out? I got it -- Adam has something to tell Sam -- you can stop hinting at it now.” Another problem is that Brady’s fictional murder self-help book is included in its entirety. In the early parts of the novel every other chapter is a chapter from Brady’s book. And Brady doesn’t write well. He’s boring, even when he’s writing about murdering people.
However, I enjoyed it a lot. Especially I liked the last few chapters, when things got really twisty.
Thanks to NetGalley and St Martin’s Press for an Advance Reader copy of How to Get Away with Murder. Release date 24-Feb=2026.