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REVIEW: Kill Your Darlings by Josh Lanyon
Kill Your Darlings – Josh Lanyon
At this mystery conference, murder is more than just another plot twist…
Nobody likes conferences, but they’re part of the job.
Millbrook House senior editor Keiran Chandler has spent years curating the best voices in crime lit, but when an unsolicited manuscript is handed to him at the Noir at the Shore mystery conference, truth collides with fiction. I Know What You Did is more than just another slush pile submission—it’s a direct threat.
U.N. Owen seems to know what really happened in Steeple Hill all those years ago. Who is Owen? How does he know these things? Clearly the mysterious author is after more than a book deal. But what?
With a potentially career-ending publishing merger on the horizon, the end of his affair with bestselling author and former homicide detective Finn Scott, and not so subtle threats from someone in his past, Keiran has a lot bigger problems than coming up with something witty to say on discussion panels.
I’d always heard the phrase “Kill your darlings” and took it literally so I had to google what it actually means. As Masterclass.com explains, it’s the writer’s ruthless art of cutting beloved but unnecessary storylines, characters, or sentences for the sake of the bigger picture.
In Josh Lanyon’s Kill Your Darlings, I’m still figuring out what those “darlings” are. The novel is a meta-heavy murder mystery featuring Keiran Chandler, a senior editor at a publishing house about to be acquired. At a mystery conference, tensions flare between editors from his current and future employers. True to Josh Lanyon’s style, the book is filled with cameos from other series, commentary on crime fiction, publishing politics, and of course—murders.
I loved the rare glimpse into traditional publishing. It’s unsurprisingly cutthroat, but seeing it through an editor’s eyes rather than a writer’s felt fresh. Keiran, respected and experienced, faces conflicting feelings about his career as rival editors circle, writers are poached, and the merger looms. At 40, he wonders if it’s too late to start over.
The conference scenes were fun, with panels featuring mystery writers who solve real-life cases. Familiar faces like Christopher Holmes (Holmes & Moriarty) , Adrien English (The Adrien English Mysteries), and Kit’s husband, JX Moriarty appear, alongside side characters offering high-falutin opinions on crime fiction that went over my head.
The real twist is Keiran’s past, and a long-ago crime Keiran was an accessory to. It came biting him in the ass in the form of blackmail through a manuscript detailing a fictionalized account of a murder Keiran was involved at just 17. This had him visiting his hometown, resurrecting old ghosts, and unearthing secrets, blurring the line between fiction and reality
I’ve always wished mysteries featured other crimes apart from murder or missing persons. So even though murder is involved, I enjoyed how the plot focused more on finding the blackmailer and how everything relates to Keiran’s tragic past. The details of the crime are already known, including the murderer, who disappeared.
As with the way of stories, everything came full circle, but I wasn’t impressed when the resolution was to literally throw things in the trash. But this is also romance, and we wouldn’t have our HEA otherwise.
The romance is classic Josh Lanyon: a second-chance romance with past hookups, mutual pinings, a bisexual single dad, and an emotionally closed-off love interest. To shake things up, Keiran, the narrator, is the emotionally distant one while Finn Scott, writer and ex-cop, wears his heart on his sleeve. While not ground-breaking, they were a worthy addition to the author’s roster.
There are books about books, but Kill Your Darlings is a book about the publishing books. Perhaps an homage and a critique, it captures the joys and woes of the people who work behind the scenes. That there was a real-life mystery in their midst is just another reminder that fiction and reality often blur in the publishing world. Overall, an insightful, and intriguing story that cuts deep in fiction and in truth.
Rating:
4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bitsSoundtrack: Kill Your Darlings
Artist: Mesh
Album: Kill Your Darlings
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KILL YOUR DARLINGS: Amazon UK | Audiobook
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REVIEW: Stay In Your Lane! by Cari Z. & L.A. Witt
Stay In Your Lane! – Cari Z. & L.A. Witt
The tasks are simple. Everett Mulligan is there to collect the body. Kyle Bowman is there to clean up the scene. Easy peasy. Get in, get out, get gone.
But Everett, for all he can be on another planet with fourteen tabs open in his brain, isn’t stupid like the cops think he is. Something about this death scene isn’t sitting right, and he’s going to figure it out. Bonus? He gets to team up with the adorkable crime-scene cleanup guy to solve the mystery.
Kyle, ever the thorough and detail-oriented cleaner, can’t ignore the scene’s irregularities either. He also can’t ignore the seriously attractive himbo from the mortuary who insists they should work together to solve what the cops insist isn’t a crime. Especially when that himbo is also enamored with Kyle’s cats and fiercely determined to make friends with his cranky piranha, Steve.
There’s a reason this death isn’t being treated as a homicide, though, and there are people who are very motivated to keep it that way.
And they’ll do whatever it takes to keep the pair of amateur sleuths from uncovering the truth.
Stay in Your Lane! by the acclaimed writer duo Cari Z. and L.A. Witt shines the spotlight on the unsung heroes of crime scene investigations: the cleaners and the morticians. All too often overlooked, the focus is often on the detectives and the forensics; these underdogs handle all the nitty-gritty bits, a.k.a. the dirty work, literally.
What happens when they see something that the police and forensics have missed? Everett Mulligan, the mortician, and Kyle Bowman, crime scene cleaner, found out the hard way that sometimes investigators see what they want to see or, in this case, unsee.
And the powers that be want them to stay in their lane or else…
Oooh, this is fun!
The romance developed so cutely alongside their investigation. Everett, whose brain and mouth go a mile a minute, wouldn’t let the issue of an unsolved murder rest. He found a kindred soul in Kyle, the sassy cleaner whose pet piranhas and cats Everett is crazy about. Joined at the hip, they quickly bond over crime and pets, a geeky power couple of crime scene cleaning.
These do-gooding dorks embarked on their quest to collect evidence that the suicide of the ex-con was actually a murder, so they could persuade the police to investigate. The chilling way the powers that be tried to hush things up hinted that this conspiracy goes all the way to the top. The bad guys were pretty obvious, like faceless cannon fodder for a John Wick movie, just there to do bad things when Kyle and Everett were rattling a few cages.
The fluffy romance led to suspenseful escapes, car chases, and a climax that was equal parts bombastic and hilarious! My favorite part is how they frequently meet at a diner, Waffles?, home to misfits such as conspiracy theory wackos and anti-establishment goth kids. It was only fitting that the big showdown happened there. The scenes at the diner were a riot!
Stay In Your Lane! is an entertaining blend of rom-com, murder mystery thriller, and sharp social commentary. Humorous and suspenseful, it also paints a vivid picture of the consequences of challenging the status quo. Overall, a funny and insightful story that lingers after one dares to step out of line.
Rating:
4 Stars – minor quibbles but I loved it to bitsSoundtrack: Color Outside The Lines
Artist: Chris Colby
Album: II
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STAY IN YOUR LANE!: Amazon UK | Audiobook
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