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

Reviews tagging 'Alcohol'

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

22 reviews

flower_mail's review

Go to review page

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

Content Warnings

bigheadcam's review

Go to review page

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!

Content Warnings

bzliz's review

Go to review page

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
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

4.75

This is everything I love in a campy mystery- it’s quirky, laugh out loud funny, and perfectly convoluted. And after finishing it I’ve learned that the author is the same Rupert Holmes who is a 2 time Tony winner and wrote the Piña Colada song. If I believed in such things I’d say it’s proof that god really does have favorites because this man is supremely talented.

The manner is which the story is told could be confusing for anyone not in the right headspace. Primarily it is a manuscript written by the Dean of a university for would-be murderers (aka deletists)- telling the story of three students of the school, all angling to kill their employers, and we learn that one of them will not be successful. Cliff Iverson’s story is told primarily through journal entries as he must document his studies for his sponsor, whereas Gemma Lindley’s and Doria Maye’s (aka Dulcie Mown) stories are told primarily through a third person omniscient narrator. It is implied that these omniscient sections are retellings of their events from undercover agents and former graduates of McMasters. Additionally, the book is split in two clear parts. The first takes place at the school where our student heroes are learning all the skills they need to become well-rounded deletists; the second is their return to the real world where they must complete their thesis (murder) in order to graduate and failure will result in their own deletion.

The only reason I cannot give this a full five stars is the tendency to use underlines to ensure a pun, double entendre, joke, etc lands correctly. It was distracting for me. I will still readily recommend this to anyone looking for a mystery book that takes an unconventional approach to the subject.

Content Warnings

Graphic: Murder, Sexual harassment, Sexual assault, and Death

Moderate: Injury/Injury detail

Minor: Homophobia, Transphobia, Suicide, Alcohol, and Racism

Death, murder:

I hope if these trigger you that you haven’t picked this book up. Multiple people will be murdered in this book, with specific details as to how it was done included.

Sexual harassment:

Doria’s target Leonid Kosta exploits women looking to break into the film industry to lure them to his home. He also uses refusal of his advances against her, thus resulting in her desire to kill him. Gemma’s target Adele Underton essentially pimps her out (using blackmail) to a big wig coming to the hospital to secure them more funding. Gemma does not go through with it.

Sexual assault:

Cliff’s target Merrill Fiedler regularly uses his station to entice women to his bed (or office). He also drugs them so they’re unaware as he takes photos of them in a compromised state that he can later use as blackmail when he wants them to go away so he can victimize someone else, but also as a threat to keep them under his thumb.

Injury:

Gemma is nearly strangled at the school. Later she is hit with cinder blocks from 3-4 stories off the ground. Other injuries occur including a few poisonings, plus the murders themselves.

Alcohol:

They drink occasionally. Alcohol is mainly used as a method of concealing poison.

Homophobia:

There is clearly shame given to same sex partners that would be period appropriate. They are minor mentions.

Racism:

Gemma notes that it’s acceptable that her white father married a woman of color but that it would not have been so if their races had been reversed. Some microaggressions about her mixed race in her real life.

Suicide:

Cliff’s crush Cora overdosed on pills due to his murder target’s blackmail.

Transphobia:

Police make some comments about the “evidence” left at one of the crime scenes showing how the murderer must be a man masquerading as a woman. They toe the line between homophobia and transphobia depending on if they believe the target knew about the guise, which is all manufactured evidence anyway.

dyer's review

Go to review page

medium-paced

Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? No
Diverse cast of characters? No

Someone who’s looking for a more casual read with a dark academia setting might enjoy this book with a unique premise.

The structure needed more work (from author/editors but also the whole idea that a super secret school with super secret alumni is writing a tell-all book didn’t really make sense) and there was a lot of “telling rather than showing” type of writing (hence why I consider it a casual read).

Content Warnings

matcha_cat's review

Go to review page

adventurous dark funny 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? It's complicated

3.25

Content Warnings

callidoralblack's review against another edition

Go to review page

adventurous lighthearted mysterious

Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Content Warnings

vagrantheather's review against another edition

Go to review page

dark funny medium-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

3.75

A fun, easy read. I wouldn't call it gripping, thrilling, or adventurous, but it was enjoyable. The intro isn't well suited to audiobooks format and kept losing me; I had to pull up an ebook sample and reread it (I think it's much more suited to reading anyway but I was already reading 2, beggars/choosers etc). The narration is great - Neil Patrick Harris and Simon Vance - and the rest of the book was fine.

I don't love that one of the murders relied on implicit transphobia / staging the murderer as a crossdresser sex crime.

Rolled my eyes at the totally unnecessary instalove.

Content Warnings

emilywemily6's review

Go to review page

dark funny lighthearted medium-paced

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

4.5

The dry, witty sense of humor in this book is my cup of tea. Listening on audio was hilarious! So many death puns. The concept was original and I loved the first half of the book. I did feel like we knew Cliff better than the other two characters highlighted in the book, and I wish we had learned more. I honestly was not a fan of Gemma as a person or her storyline, so when her storyline was a more prominent part of the book, I enjoyed reading this book a bit less. I found her a bit pathetic and uncreative in her deletion thesis, whereas I was totally on board with both Cliff and Doria’s plans, executions, and contingencies. The only other gripe I have is that the setting in the 1950s was pretty subtle for most of the book, so I had to remind myself what the culture was at that time to understand the book. Overall, this book was so fun to read, witty and smart.

Content Warnings

dexkit10's review

Go to review page

dark funny mysterious medium-paced

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

4.0

Content Warnings

toffishay's review

Go to review page

dark funny mysterious medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? Plot
Strong character development? No
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.25

I liked this book well-enough, but I definitely wanted to like it more. The premise is so fun: a school that teaches you how to murder is ripe for puns and gags and you definitely get plenty of those. It still has adult subject matter though, so you get the vibes of a Series of Unfortunate Events or Truly, Devious, but with a mature element that really serves as a strong suit. The pacing is a little off for me. <SPOILER> The first part of the book centers around getting us acclimated to McMasters Academy, but then in the middle of the book the characters leave to carry out their "theses". At that point things slow down a lot of the three characters that we follow end up being so spread out that it can be a little bit of a slog to get through. I think that this isn't helped by the fact that even though we are following three main characters, the stories of Gemma and Dulci/Dorie felt way underdeveloped compared to Cliff's. Gemma is portrayed in a very middling way that makes you sympathetic to her, but she isn't very interesting to follow. Dulcie/Dorie is more interesting, but her ending falls so flat that it feels like the narrative is trying to punish her in a way that it isn't doing with Gemma and Cliff. And in both the cases of Gemma and Dulcie/Dorie, there endings feel rushed and incomplete, like all the attention was on Cliff and then the author remembers that they have to wrap up the other stories too. The romance between Cliff and Gemma felt weird too. He spends all of their interactions idolizing her for seeming nicer than other students and also being upset with her for her assignment with another character, Jud, because she is spending time with a man. And then at the end, it picks back up insinuating that they will get togehter? It feels underdeveloped. Ultimately, I think that this books could have been better served by focusing on Cliff's story, since that is the one that the author seemed the most attached too. <END SPOILER> I only have so much to say because I really wanted to love this book! It does hit on a lot of things that I like with a fun tongue-in-cheek framing, interesting mystery elements, a anti-hero stance that sides with the underdogs. All of that is great. But the characters, the length, and the division of the action/plot really drag this one down.

Content Warnings

More...