The Other Murder
Kevin G. Chapman
First Legacy
320 pages
February 29th, 2024
🌳🌳🌳🌳
The Other Murder is a standalone crime fiction story set in the same world as the author’s award-winning Mike Stoneman series – but while his likably staunch detective is mentioned, he doesn’t appear, and you certainly don’t need to have read those to enjoy this one. I beta read this for the author in April 2023, then reread the final version, and was pleased to see all the changes which have made it a much stronger book – and thrilled to see my name in the dedications.
When a young female student is shot dead in a New York park, the local community is appalled. Journalists, police and protesters flock to the scene and the story becomes national news, but was the victim as innocent as she seemed, and why is no one interested in the second murder that happened close by?
This mixes up police procedural with social commentary, as we follow the perspectives of multiple key characters: the detectives investigating both crimes, two journalists with very different agendas, and even the main villain. Systemic racism and bias within the media, police and local politics is explored, and even characters who are trying to do their best within a flawed system are motivated more by their career prospects than by revealing facts that the public might find unpalatable: I found the eventual outcome to be depressingly believable. This isn’t really a whodunnit or a thriller, but rather an engrossing and unconventional look at how sometimes a story becomes more important than the truth.
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