4 🌟

Do you ever want to pick up a lighter book that's not a predictable romcom?! If so, this is your book!

This mystery was fast paced and hooked me right away. I enjoyed that Capri was trying to solve both the current case and a cold case involving her grandfather. I think the only thing that would have made this book better is multiple POVs (,possibly the detective working on the case?! 😍).

Thanks, Netgalley for the ARC of this book!

I really enjoyed this book. I laughed in parts of it. I enjoyed following the "guide" in this book to all the ghost places. I would recommend this book to my family and friends.

I was super intrigued by the title, the premise, and the cover, so I was excited to receive a copy from NetGalley for review. Unfortunately, this book fell flat for me. It’s more mystery than thriller, and it drags on a bit at times.

This is a beautifully detailed journey of a woman ( love over flirty main characters that are funny with food quirks)finding herself by examining the ones around her and the ones that came before. Capri (beautiful name right?) is related to a notorious serial killer ( her grandfather that she believes to be innocent), and has made a touring business of the past murder scenes (couldn’t be me but maybe if I lived in SF)
However, it looks like a copycat killer is currently on the loose and making Capri and her teen daughter suspects (Is this a cozy murder?) I would say probably but with a complexity I wasn’t expecting. I loved these characters and the attention to detail (this could be a really great series!) I hope to read more from this author and hopefully this universe. Thank you so much to NetGalley for giving me a preview of this book in exchange for my honest review. I highly recommend pre ordering (if you see this in real time) this delightful story.

This is a perfect late summer mystery! It's a little bit cozy with a little bit of thriller, and so much sass. The main character, Capri, is the granddaughter of a convicted serial killer, Overkill Bill. She's spent her whole life wondering if her grandfather was really guilty, but never had the chance to dig in deeper. Then a woman is killed by an Overkill Bill copycat. This spurs Capri to start looking at her grandfather's case again.
I know what you're thinking, how can a book with a serial killer be a cozy mystery? Everything intense happens off-page, so there's no graphic descriptions, and Capri is anything but a police detective. Instead, she's the quintessential scrappy, DIY gal with a gut instinct and a determination to find some answers.
Capri also has the fun group of friends that band around her, from her best friend from school to their lovable nerdy coworker who just happens to know how to hack everything. Their camaraderie and slice-of-life moments at their shared job, a tour of San Francisco serial killers, is the humor needed to offset any intensity in the book.
My only issue with the book was its pacing. As a rule of thumb, mysteries can move a little slower than thrillers, and this was no exception. It didn't bother me until l'd gotten to the halfway point. Then there were so many things going on, but the characters were still taking things extremely slowly, with almost no build-up for absolutely insane plot moments! However, the ending was really well-done, and that canceled out most of my issues.
I think this is a perfect summer read because it is cozy. It's not some huge, dramatic thriller that has your stomach turning and nightmares starting. Instead, it's a gripping but funny mystery with a sweetly wrapped up ending!
Thanks to Netgalley and Minotaur Books for the free advanced copy in exchange for an honest review!

This was such a fun and cozy mystery novel! I enjoyed getting to dive head first into the chaos of Capri’s life as she works to solve not only the mystery surrounding her grandfathers (maybe wrongful?) conviction of being a serial killer, but the copy cat that is replicating those same string of murders that are hitting far too close to home.

The mystery itself was very well done and I didn’t see it coming at all. I genuinely thought it was so shocking and enjoyed the surprise at the end—not guessing a twist is a favorite thing of mine. The pacing did lend itself to be a bit of a slower moving book, but I didn’t end up minding that too much as things picked up half way through.

The side characters were just as fleshed out as the main, and I loved getting to know them all! When I finished this, I immediately ran to see if this was going to be a cozy series. Fingers crossed!

I love that this book ties in an old murder mystery with a new one! This book stands alone and resolves both mysteries but I wish it would become a series.

Thanks so much St. Martin's Press and NetGalley for the ARC! This book was such a fun journey! I felt like there were a good amount of twists and turns, mystery and it was paced really well. I thought the main characters in this book were great. It was such an easy read that I think anyone would enjoy.

I received a free e-arc of this book through Netgalley in exchange for my honest review.
I liked the idea of this story being that her grandfather was a notorious serial killer and the book is about her trying to figure out if he was really guilty or innocent. I find myself getting a bit annoyed with her (as I do with most amateur detectives) that she puts herself in danger, but I guess the book needs it. I also liked the tour guide aspect of the main character since my family usually does take local tours on vacation.

This was fun! A little bit too long, but fun!

I liked Capri, she made me laugh. In a book of serial killers and the darker sides of San Francisco, she brought some light and life to the story.

It was a pretty solid amateur detective book, I hope there is a series from this one.

I recommend it!

Thanks to NetGalley for the ARC, all opinions are my own.

Thank you for the ARC in exchange for my honest review. I DNF at 30%. It had a great premise but it wasn’t holding my attention and I had no desire to keep trying after a week. It was feeling a little slow with irrelevant details; some reviews confirmed that so I decided to move on,

This was an enjoyable read. The MC, Capri Sanzio is the daughter of the notorious serial killer, William Sanzio. William, AKA Overkill Bill tormented the prostitutes of San Francisco. After Capri's divorce from her husband, she is left without an income. She gets creative and starts a tour company that specializes in the dark side of SF. She details the crimes of Overkill Bill, as well as some of SF's other notorious members.

Capri is shocked when she hears that a city member has been murdered, the same way Overkill Bill killed his victims. Not longer after, her mother in law, Sylvia, is found murdered in the same fashion. Due to Capri's correlation to both her MIL and Overkill Bill, she becomes a suspect, as does her daughter. She is in no way going to allow her daughter to be blamed for something she didn't do.

I enjoyed the characters in the book. Capri was great, as was the staff at her tour company. I enjoyed hearing about the new tour ideas she was comnig up with. As Capri starts digging in to Sylvia's murder, she learns that William may not have been the notorius serial killer.

Having spent time in SF, I was slightly confused as to how Capri zipped from her home to her in laws so quickly, but that did not in any way detract from the story and the beautfiul setting that was described.

Thanks to NetGalley for providing me with an advance copy of this book to review.

What a great story! Capri is a headstrong tour company operator with a colorful family history who is able to investigate and help solve two mysteries all while charming a local detective. I loved her character and the central mystery!

Wow, this is truly the best mystery I’ve read in a really long time. By the time the killer is revealed, you are literally confused as to who the killer actually is and why. I found myself trying to keep up with Capri and there just kept on being suspicious things happening every which way. If you’re going to read one mystery book this summer, THIS IS IT. You will not be disappointed!!

Thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fun little mystery, made more interesting by the simultaneous investigation of a past murder in the main character’s history. Diverting enough for a vacation read, but I never connected strongly with the characters. The plot moved along at a good pace, and I liked the short dividing chapters on the criminal history of San Francisco. I imagine if you know that city well this book will be a real gem of a read for you. Some reveals were a bit too convenient, but it kept me engaged throughout. A decent mystery read.

This book had an interesting premise - granddaughter of a notorious serial killer gets pulled into an investigation when a copycat killer turns up! - but it slowly but surely got annoying as the story progressed.

This story just had a weird sense of like...time. It frequently delved into the minutia of every single day in a way that was completely unnecessary (we don't need to know the details of every time she drives somewhere!) so you really also felt you were slogging through every hour with the MC. It was boring! Also I really feel like San Francisco has more shitty traffic than was ever mentioned!

But then this is also one of those books where a newfangled job (YouTuber! TikToker! Podcaster! - in this case, the latter) is added to the plot so it can be put into the book blurb and attract the Youths, without any sort of understanding of what that job entails or why you would do it or why it's interesting. The MC decides to start a podcast to prove her grandfather didn't do the crimes because a friend suggests it'll be a quick way to make money (the creative arts! ah, that old get rich quick scheme) but instead of this being woven into the plot it's just occasionally like "and then at the end of a tiring day driving from place to place, she wrote and recorded an episode of the podcast." I'm not kidding, that's it. I don't think she ever even puts up any episodes? Then after a bunch of weirdly paced incidents during which nobody acts like a normal person because that would mean the plot couldn't move forward, this final mystery is solved like an afterthought.

And while it was initially nice to read about a slightly different sort of protagonist - a divorced woman in her fifties! - I was INCREDIBLY disappointed by the ending from a character perspective. The MC's ex-husband sucks and is a shady, annoying cheater and liar so you're like girl, okay, happy to see you've moved on from that. Then she gets entangled with a police detective who's treating her as a suspect while letting her just like, do his job for him. In basically every one of their interactions she ends up telling him too much and then feeling really stupid about it, noting explicitly how manipulative this man is and how he's playing her for a sucker while using her for his own ends and also trying to pin the modern crimes on her or her daughter. Yikes, am I right?

Well, don't worry about it, because she's going to solve the crime for him and then when he asks her out at the end, she's going to say yes. So...your days of having absolutely wretched taste in men are certainly coming to a middle, huh? It's gnarly when I don't even have to lean on the ACAB of it all to disagree with this call even though yeah, also ACAB!!! That knocked a whole star off of what would have otherwise been a fine enough three star read. Heterosexual women, please love yourselves.

My thanks to St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books and NetGalley for the ARC.

I absolutely loved the cover of this book and was instantly drawn to it. This is definitely not my type of read as I mostly read rom-coms but the description drew me in. I was kept interested the whole book even if it went a little deep into crime lingo I couldn’t follow but I definitely ignored my family to finish it because I wanted to know how it ended. Thank you for the advanced copy of this fast paced mystery!

This book was good! I enjoyed the characters and the story and I found myself wanting to reread it to understand the plot more.

copycat-murders, serial-killer, serial-murder, unpleasant-in-laws, unpleasant-victims, secrets, lies, local-law-enforcement, California, podcaster, relationships, relatives, family, family-dynamics, family-drama, friendship, angst, investigations, amateur-sleuth, riveting*****

The publisher's blurb is a good prelude/background to the story. Main character is the granddaughter of a well-publicized serial killer who find herself and her PhD candidate daughter cast as suspects in copy-cat killings mimicking the earlier ones. The police are on this track because one of the new victims is her contentious mother-in-law who has just devastated their finances. Considering that Capri's main source of income is business running special interest tours, it seems somewhat plausible. Soon she is doing due diligence and a deep dive into the cases her grandfather was convicted of as well as the new ones and finding the road is as twisty and the red herrings as remarkable as anything by the classic writers. Excellent read.
I requested and received a free temporary uncorrected proof e-galley from St. Martin's Press | Minotaur Books via NetGalley. Thank you. Avail Sep 24, 2024

The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco is a captivating exploration of the city, brimming with quirky situations and colorful characters that truly bring San Francisco to life on the page. From the very start, I found myself completely engrossed in the narrative and unable to put the book down.