The Other Murder by Kevin Chapman Review

* This review is spoiler-free *

4/5 ⭐

Tropes

➮ Multiple POVs

➮ Butterfly effect

Synopsis

Hannah Hawthorne is a cable news producer who is looking to revive her career. Paulo is a local newspaper reporter looking to bring more attention to the lives of locals. When an NYU sophomore is found dead in Central Park a frenzy ensues. Paulo wants to shed light on the other murder in the park that night, Hannah wants to solve the case, the media wants the juiciest story, the police want to keep the public out, and the people involved want to fly under the radar. The Other Murder follows all of their perspectives as the two murders bring these people together. 

Best Quote From the Book

“Hannah kept chasing the tentacles of the Angelica Monroe story, which were spreading out in every possible direction."

My Thoughts

This book follows the perspectives of at least seven characters. That said, it is all written in the third person. It was like there were a lot of different side plots like a TV  show yet every perspective unravels the main plot. At first, these many perspectives got a bit confusing as I was getting to know all of the characters. That said, it was totally worth it to get the rich depth about the two murders from the lens of many different people all with different motives. 

My biggest qualm with this book is that it is set in the active present. More specifically, modern-day truly 2024. There was a brief mention of the pandemic and I have to be honest it took me out of the book for a good bit. I would've liked it more if the book was set in the present without such clear and distinct time markers making it feel too, meta. 

This book does an INCREDIBLE job of demonstrating how one incident can shape the lives of many people. The deaths of Angelica and Javier connected so many people who would've never given each other a second chance otherwise. It goes to show how powerful the butterfly effect can be. One brief moment directly and indirectly shaped the lives of many people forever. I wonder how many indirect events have shaped the direction of my life?

I am not sure why exactly this happened but I did find myself starting to make much slower progress with the book at about the halfway point and beyond. Perhaps that was the point where the story started to become much more complex and took me longer to process. 

There is one moment at the end of the book I just, cannot forgive. All I will say is why Paulo, why would you do that? That alone knocked the book down a quarter of a star because it just seemed so insane and out of character. 

Thought-provoking book club questions. If you do give this book a chance, I would love to hear what you think about what this book has to say about the criminal justice system and reporting. I didn't dive into that aspect in my review because it didn't really shape my opinion of the book. 

In sum, this book stands out a lot to me as a part of the mystery genre. I greatly appreciate the power of the many perspectives around the murders. Hearing from so many voices provided so much richness and variety while all being about the ramifications of about 15 minutes if that.