The story of a true crime junkie who now gets to figure out a murder for herself and different ways to go about it. Great quick read!

I found this a little bit more of a slower burn than I first anticipated, but once it got going I couldn’t put it down! A great read!
Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for my ARC

The title, How to Get Away with Murder, immediately caught my attention and drew me in, promising a thrilling and mysterious read. While the story took a little time to build momentum, the intrigue and suspense quickly made up for the slow start. Once it got going, I found myself hooked, trying to piece together the clues and constantly questioning every character’s motives.

The premise of a crime journalist investigating gruesome murders while dealing with her unraveling psyche was both clever and engaging. The author did an excellent job weaving unexpected twists and secrets throughout the story, keeping me guessing until the very end. The tension was palpable, and the ending was as shocking as it was satisfying.

This book is dark, mysterious, and thought-provoking—a good read for fans of true crime and psychological thrillers!

I really enjoyed this one. It had a lot of twists and turns and I didnt see a lot of this coming. I will be reading more by this author as soon as I can!

Amari , is all of us who had to deal with significant trauma and thus had her childhood ripped from her and has been drop kicked into adulthood way too soon. This book promises an exploration of trauma and leads us on a journey through the eyes of an unreliable narrator.
She appears human , infuriating , frustrating but at the same time demands the reader's empathy. You try to understand why she is consistently questioning herself, but it feels like she is trapped by her own high self image.
The book has potential, it has a promising plot, however the promised element of "wow" runs the risk of becoming predictable when the plot relies too heavily on past trauma

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, though it wasn’t without its ups and downs. The plot had me intrigued from the start, but I found the first half a bit uneven. The main character felt somewhat flat, and I struggled to get a clear sense of her motivations—was she good or bad? That ambiguity left me feeling disconnected at times.

However, the second half of the book completely turned things around. The pacing picked up, the character development improved, and the twists kept me hooked. The ending, in particular, was jaw-dropping—I actually said “no way!” out loud.

While the beginning wasn’t as strong as I’d hoped, the explosive conclusion more than made up for it. Overall, this is a solid read, and I’d rate it 4 stars.

How to Get Away with Murder by Tam Barnett is a mystery/thriller book about a reporter who brought a serial killer to justice and is looking for the next big break. The title is intriguing and made me request for the book, but I must confess that I was a little disappointed the first few chapters in. Luckily, the action picked up later and the suspense and twists made this an enjoyable reading. The ending was interesting but I not to my taste.
Thank you, Netgalley and Boldwood Books, for the ARC. All opinions are mine

Kelli Amari is a walking embodiment of trauma who handles her past in ways that may lead her down a dangerous path (for her and for other people honestly). During her childhood, her father killed someone and died in prison—but as an unreliable narrator, she doesn't reveal the significance of this event until later in the book. Kelli works as a journalist and is obsessed with true crime, she has an unusual friendship with a serial killer she helped arrest, and finds herself questioning her own actions as bodies begin appearing around her while she's under the influence of sleeping pills she really shouldn’t have in her possession.
Kelli is both endearing and infuriating. She considers herself clever, but her actions suggest otherwise. For someone so well-versed in crime, she misses obvious red flags, especially regarding her questionable choices in the last scene of the book.
I liked the idea of this book more than the execution. The killer's motives feel underdeveloped, relying too heavily on past trauma without sufficient explanation to make it convincing.
I do love complicated women in fiction, and Kelli perfectly embodies that.

I enjoyed this book tremendously. The premise was intriguing and more interesting than a lot of novels have been recently. The only reason it's not got five stars is because I felt there was to much going on. The editors needed to cut back a little.

journalist, twisty, dark-comedy, crime-thriller, serial-murder, creepy, psychological-thriller, psychopath, PTSD, relationships, relationship-issues, friendship, friends, frustration, family-dynamics, family, family-history, British***

The journalist and the psychopath. The journalist is a little off since her father murdered the pedophile, and she actually witnessed the current psychopathic killer at the scene of one of his kills. Her life is kind of a mess, and yet she remains in contact with the killer. And yet there is a kind of snide dark humor about the whole thing. Unusual and interesting, but I gave up at the halfway point. Simply not my thing, but total fun for some others.
I requested and received a free temporary uncorrected advance proof from Boldwood Books via NetGalley.
Avail Jan 27, 2025 #HowToGetAwayWithMurder by Tam Barnett #NetGalley @BoldwoodBooks #CrimeThriller #DarkComedy #British

Hated the prologue and was very grateful when the chapters after weren’t written in the same manner. The book cover is very cool, pulling me in from the jump just seeing it on the book page. Overall some very interesting character dynamics and although the characters (especially Kelli) aren’t perfect or even most times sympathetic, I found myself very curious what they would do next and how they’d get on as the story progressed. Although sometimes I did find the main character a bit annoying….
The main character's relationship with a serial killer is an interesting plot thread made even more interesting when it is revealed her father was also put in jail for a murder (Although it turns out to not be so cut and dry). One moment though, felt a little like “stop trying to make Fetch happen” and it was so distracting, when the main character shortens boyfriend to Boyf, No. As well as referencing recent media like The Bear or Gilmore Girls. Some of the authors descriptions and comments are quite nice though.
Laughed a little when the main character's partner says celebrities she shared a birthday with and she mentions a serial killer she shares a birthday with. Not funny but also very funny.



Interesting debut. Might check out the next books from this author.

This book is well written and kept me guessing from the start. The twists and turns in this book kept on coming right to the very end! A great read!

How to Get Away with Murder by Tam Barnett
Rating: 3.5/5

As someone who loves crime thrillers and true crime references, I was immediately intrigued by the premise of How to Get Away with Murder. The story follows Kelli Amari, a crime journalist with a fixation on serial killers, both as a career and a personal obsession. While it delivered some solid twists and an ending that caught me by surprise, the overall execution left me with mixed feelings.

This was an okay thriller if you don't mind plots that are a little on the predictable side. The writing was good but I just didn't connect with the main character and didn't really find anything fresh or intriguing with the plot.

I really struggled with this book. I think that I didn’t care about the characters enough and some seemed too similar to each other. I ended up skimming to find out what happened. There were a few twists, but this book was still not for me.

This is a very modern take on murder thriller. The FMC is a huge fan of true crime and true crime podcasts when a crime happens in her area! Is she innocent? Or is it an act? The main character is loveable and you feel a bond with her and hope she finds the killer. I really enjoyed this

This was fun! I enjoyed the main character Kelli, with her background in journalism and podcasts stumbling into her own murder mystery to solve. The book was quick to start, and I feel like the overall story moved at a great pace that I never felt like I was reading filler, and had some good side characters. Even had a few twists that I didn’t see coming, which I feel like is a must in a mystery.

Thank you to NetGalley and Boldwood Books for this ARC.

Kelli Amari, the slightly unreliable narrator of this story, is a crime reporter who is obsessed with serial killers and true crime documentaries, ever since her Dad killed a paedophile when she was little and then died in prison.

She has managed to put away one serial killer, dubbed the White Widower (shouldn't that have been the Widowmaker?), although I don't understand how he just let her call the police. She still visits him in prison because she is writing a book about him, and also because she is fascinated by his mindset and psychopathic traits. She used to work with fellow reporter Rob Grayson but they fell out when she got all the credit.

Her boyfriend Ben is nice and reassuringly normal but I got the feeling she isn't really into him all that much, especially as he can't understand her traumatic past. She has two best friends, Anna who is married to boring Henry, and Polly who is in an abusive relationship with taxi driver Todd.

Suddenly there is a new serial killer on the prowl, striking in Kelli's neighbourhood, dubbed the Nailer due to using a nailgun on the victims. With resentful Rob on her back, her Dad's death anniversary looming, her mum's health on the decline, Ben suddenly being under suspicion and Polly acting weirdly, Kelli cannot be sure she isn't the Nailer herself, while under the influence of strong painkillers that you can only get from dodgy online pharmacies and who make her sleepwalk.

"I guess rule number one of committing the perfect murder would be convincing everyone you weren’t contemplating murder at all."

There were some fairly unlikeable characters in this book, and many unpredictable twists and turns, born out of strong feelings of revenge for more than one character. Unfortunately the book only gets going around the halfway mark, and the first half gives no indication on how twisty and chaotic the second half will be.

For a debut novel this is quite self-assured, and it's a fast read with an end twist I did not see coming! Recommended if you love your true crime references and unhinged psychopaths or sociopaths at every corner.

"The genius of the psychopath is in absorbing the ordinary behaviours of others to convince the world that they themselves are also ordinary."

3.5 stars

This book had a great plot with intriguing characters. I’ll definitely be looking out for more from this author.

Received this book as an Arc reader in exchange for an honest review. The start of this book had me very interested and captured me, I wasn’t sure where the story was going to go or what plot twists were going to happen. I felt once we hit the halfway point, things seemed to just get quite messy and there was lots of different stories being told and I found it hard to keep track of what the actual plot was meant to be. There was a lot of things from the past being brought up but felt like they didn’t add much to the story. I loved the true crime references though. I felt like the first half of the book is very very good but after that it started to go downhill for me so the rating was 3 stars for me