Killing Me
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- $16.99
Publisher Description
Finalist for the CALIBA 2023 Golden Poppy Award
A LibraryReads Pick
Utterly original and wildly entertaining, Killing Me is a laugh-loud-loud thriller with a protagonist whose life is a total mess.
She escaped a serial killer. Then things got weird.
Amber Jamison can’t believe she’s about to become the latest victim of a serial killer. She’s savvy and street smart, so when she gets pushed into, of all things, a white windowless van, she is more angry than afraid. Things get even weirder when she’s miraculously saved by a mysterious woman . . . who promptly disappears. Who was she? And why is she hunting serial killers?
You’d think escaping one psychopath would be enough, but Amber’s problems are just beginning. Her close call has law enforcement circling a past she’s tried to outrun. She’s forced to flee across the country, ending up at a seedy motel in Las Vegas with a noir-obsessed manager and a sex worker as her unlikely companions . . . and danger right behind. She’s landed in the cross hairs of the world’s most prolific killer, caught up in a deadly game that’s been going on for years. To survive, she is forced to dust off her old playbook and partner with someone she can’t trust. The odds are against her, but sometimes you just have to roll the dice.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Gagnon (Unearthly Things) sets a high bar for herself—making a crime novel that centers on multiple serial killers funny—but doesn't quite clear it. Amber Jamison is bound and gagged in the back of a van in Johnson City, Tenn., the latest captive of the Pikachu Killer. Under imminent threat of being strangled, shaved, and painted to resemble a Pokémon character, Jamison is rescued by a ski-masked woman who wields a cattle prod and kills Jamison's captor. Her narrow escape from danger proves short-lived, though, as Jamison makes her way to Las Vegas and finds herself involved in the search for another serial killer. Her rescuer resurfaces under unsettling circumstances, and Gagnon reveals that Jamison is a veteran con who may have faked her initial capture. Jamison's narration never quite convinces, though she does land a few jokes and twists along the way. Readers seeking a serial killer thriller with a light touch would be better served by Benjamin Stevenson's Everyone in My Family Has Killed Someone.