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A review by fatimaelf
Murder Your Employer: The McMasters Guide to Homicide by Rupert Holmes
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
4.0
What an interesting twist on the assassin genre! Functionally this book is about a boarding school for wannabe killers, where we follow their journey for the first half of the book at the murder school, and for the second half of the book we follow their attempts to kill their chosen targets.
The book was a split POV, the majority of it told through the journal entries of Cliff, our primary narrator. On occasion (more near the end of the novel) we switch to third person POV to follow Gemma and Doria. All three of our main characters want to kill their employer, hence the book’s name, and to be honest, you understand really quickly why they do.
I think the characters were well fleshed out — it was easy to understand their motivations, their pasts, and their flaws. For the most part I found them likable and rooted for their success, except for when it felt like the author was trying too hard to make Cliff a “good guy.”
There was an instance in which Cliff reacted to a situation with a woman he liked jealously though he had no right, and the author twisted Cliff up in knots acknowledging that Cliff had no right to feel that way (he didn’t) but at least he understood he was being a hypocritical pig. I’m not attempting to police the characters’ actions — they don’t need to be overtly moral or good, obviously, because they are literally trying to kill people — and in fact I think we ran into the opposite problem here. By having Cliff identify his own actions in romanticizing someone he has no relationship with as wrong, he’s become someone almost without flaws. You could make the argument that this makes sense, considering he’s presenting himself and he wants to present himself as perfect, but I’ve read enough AITA posts to know even when you’re trying to present yourself perfectly you never manage to do it, well, perfectly. This just read like the author was trying to present him perfectly, which was annoying.
As for the plot itself, it was really good once we got the murder bits. Unfortunately I found the murder school to be a bit dull, which was unexpected and unfortunate. It was described well and all the classes seemed really cool, but we were mostly following Cliff, and he was sort of dull, so it felt like we got a very narrow view of both the campus and the classes. What little we did get of the curriculum was fascinating — especially on how it’s built into every activity on campus — and the glimpses we get of how difficult it is to build relationships and distance with classmates who are literally training in murder is probably the best part of the boarding school half.
Kudos to all the little murder tips, by the way. You can also tell a whole lot of research (…at least I hope it was research) went into the book.
Once we got on the road, so to speak, and our main three went about applying the McMasters principles to their murder plot, the book picked up in pace by a lot. I flew through the latter part of this book, just wanting to know how each person planned their murder or fucked it up. Right off the bat you’re told not everyone succeeded in their plot, and you can deduce maybe halfway through who it was, which did make that particular murder plot slightly less interesting to follow. But the target on that mission was suitably infuriating enough, and the would-be killer suitably likable, that it was still a good plot line to follow.
I think my main critique was with the romance subplot. It felt shoe-horned in, unnecessary, and extremely underdeveloped. This is where Cliff’s “nice guy” persona makes him super irritating. It didn’t feel like there was any foundation to the romance at all, beyond a few conversations and some embarrassingly brief eye contact. In no way was I rooting for this relationship, and any time it came up I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
The other critique I had was that sometimes the book didn’t follow its own logic. McMasters, we’re told, is specifically in the business of helping people kill people that ticks off each of the “Four Enquiries,” whereby the elimination of the target must be necessary, must benefit others, must not harm others, and must be the last resort. There are numerous instances of this not being the case. One such case, Jud Helkampf, is acknowledged by the Dean, but you’re a murder school; if someone’s flagrantly breaking the rules, why don’t you just get rid of them? Then, at the end, Doria indicates she may use her skills again, even though her target in that case wouldn’t fulfill the prerequisites for murder, not that that seemed to bother the Dean in the slightest. The more you think about the logic of McMasters, the less sense it makes, and that’s not to do with the existence of the school itself, but with the author’s rules about its existence that don’t align consistently.
And, finally, the dialogue. This is a bit nitpicky on my part — the book is presented as a recreation of events, from witness testimony, memory, and journal entries. As such I know I can’t expect it to be totally accurate, much like I wouldn’t expect a memoir to be totally accurate. However, I did expect (maybe wrongfully) for the dialogue to be more natural, more smooth. There were instances in which it was obvious that the characters were providing exposition in an overt, info-dump manner. The way some of them talked — and I did keep in mind that this is set in the mid-twentieth century — read at times as unnatural, and jolted me out of the story. That’s just a personal grievance, however, and can technically, if one wanted, be explained away by the nature of the text itself.
Though I didn’t have a problem with it, I can understand some might: the ending was too neat. Too clean. Not the murders — this is set in the 50s, so honestly I think our main characters went to far too much trouble, but the end result of our killers’ stories. It felt tied up with a pretty little bow, happily ever after all around (well, except one) which I personally don’t take issue with, but still acknowledge all the same.
Overall this was a quirky, unique book that kept me guessing the whole way through. If Rupert Holmes comes out with a sequel, which I think I read he was working on, I’ll definitely be reading that one too.
The book was a split POV, the majority of it told through the journal entries of Cliff, our primary narrator. On occasion (more near the end of the novel) we switch to third person POV to follow Gemma and Doria. All three of our main characters want to kill their employer, hence the book’s name, and to be honest, you understand really quickly why they do.
I think the characters were well fleshed out — it was easy to understand their motivations, their pasts, and their flaws. For the most part I found them likable and rooted for their success, except for when it felt like the author was trying too hard to make Cliff a “good guy.”
There was an instance in which Cliff reacted to a situation with a woman he liked jealously though he had no right, and the author twisted Cliff up in knots acknowledging that Cliff had no right to feel that way (he didn’t) but at least he understood he was being a hypocritical pig. I’m not attempting to police the characters’ actions — they don’t need to be overtly moral or good, obviously, because they are literally trying to kill people — and in fact I think we ran into the opposite problem here. By having Cliff identify his own actions in romanticizing someone he has no relationship with as wrong, he’s become someone almost without flaws. You could make the argument that this makes sense, considering he’s presenting himself and he wants to present himself as perfect, but I’ve read enough AITA posts to know even when you’re trying to present yourself perfectly you never manage to do it, well, perfectly. This just read like the author was trying to present him perfectly, which was annoying.
As for the plot itself, it was really good once we got the murder bits. Unfortunately I found the murder school to be a bit dull, which was unexpected and unfortunate. It was described well and all the classes seemed really cool, but we were mostly following Cliff, and he was sort of dull, so it felt like we got a very narrow view of both the campus and the classes. What little we did get of the curriculum was fascinating — especially on how it’s built into every activity on campus — and the glimpses we get of how difficult it is to build relationships and distance with classmates who are literally training in murder is probably the best part of the boarding school half.
Kudos to all the little murder tips, by the way. You can also tell a whole lot of research (…at least I hope it was research) went into the book.
Once we got on the road, so to speak, and our main three went about applying the McMasters principles to their murder plot, the book picked up in pace by a lot. I flew through the latter part of this book, just wanting to know how each person planned their murder or fucked it up. Right off the bat you’re told not everyone succeeded in their plot, and you can deduce maybe halfway through who it was, which did make that particular murder plot slightly less interesting to follow. But the target on that mission was suitably infuriating enough, and the would-be killer suitably likable, that it was still a good plot line to follow.
I think my main critique was with the romance subplot. It felt shoe-horned in, unnecessary, and extremely underdeveloped. This is where Cliff’s “nice guy” persona makes him super irritating. It didn’t feel like there was any foundation to the romance at all, beyond a few conversations and some embarrassingly brief eye contact. In no way was I rooting for this relationship, and any time it came up I couldn’t help but roll my eyes.
The other critique I had was that sometimes the book didn’t follow its own logic. McMasters, we’re told, is specifically in the business of helping people kill people that ticks off each of the “Four Enquiries,” whereby the elimination of the target must be necessary, must benefit others, must not harm others, and must be the last resort. There are numerous instances of this not being the case. One such case, Jud Helkampf, is acknowledged by the Dean, but you’re a murder school; if someone’s flagrantly breaking the rules, why don’t you just get rid of them? Then, at the end, Doria indicates she may use her skills again, even though her target in that case wouldn’t fulfill the prerequisites for murder, not that that seemed to bother the Dean in the slightest. The more you think about the logic of McMasters, the less sense it makes, and that’s not to do with the existence of the school itself, but with the author’s rules about its existence that don’t align consistently.
And, finally, the dialogue. This is a bit nitpicky on my part — the book is presented as a recreation of events, from witness testimony, memory, and journal entries. As such I know I can’t expect it to be totally accurate, much like I wouldn’t expect a memoir to be totally accurate. However, I did expect (maybe wrongfully) for the dialogue to be more natural, more smooth. There were instances in which it was obvious that the characters were providing exposition in an overt, info-dump manner. The way some of them talked — and I did keep in mind that this is set in the mid-twentieth century — read at times as unnatural, and jolted me out of the story. That’s just a personal grievance, however, and can technically, if one wanted, be explained away by the nature of the text itself.
Though I didn’t have a problem with it, I can understand some might: the ending was too neat. Too clean. Not the murders — this is set in the 50s, so honestly I think our main characters went to far too much trouble, but the end result of our killers’ stories. It felt tied up with a pretty little bow, happily ever after all around (well, except one) which I personally don’t take issue with, but still acknowledge all the same.
Overall this was a quirky, unique book that kept me guessing the whole way through. If Rupert Holmes comes out with a sequel, which I think I read he was working on, I’ll definitely be reading that one too.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Murder, Death, and Violence
Moderate: Death of parent