I loved, loved, loved Murder Your Employer McMasters Guide to Homicide. It’s the best book I’ve read all year and so much fun.
The premise is genius: the McMasters Conservatory for the Applied Arts is a well-hidden, secret school that recruits students who have plans to murder a well-deserving target–or delete them, as the school calls it. The book follows three students, particularly focusing on Clive Iverson, whose diary entries are incorporated in the “guidebook” to the school. Two other students are also featured.
The first half of the book is devoted to the students’ experience at the school, and the second to their planned “deletions.” I don’t want to give a thing away, so let me just say this book is witty, incredibly clever, and riveting from start to finish. I am of the opinion that it’s quite a feat to stick the landing when it comes to a book’s ending, but this ending is perfect. The author, Rupert Holmes, is brilliant–the pace doesn’t give up for a second, and there are no dull lulls in the plot.
I wish I could give this more than five stars. Suffice to say that anyone who enjoys mysteries, suspense, and lots of tongue-in-cheek humor will likely find this book as delightful as I did.