Matt Goldman begins his new novel, “The Murder Show,” with a million dollar first sentence. The kind of first sentence that guarantees readers will be hooked. The first sentence is blood drippingly gory, and that, combined with the humor on the rest of the first page, means we are in for a treat.
It only gets better as we follow Ethan Harris on his visit home to see his parents in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for the High Holidays. They live in the same house they occupied when Ethan was in high school. As he looks out the kitchen window, he sees his high school friend Ro in the house she lived in twenty years ago. She is arguing with someone, and it looks heated. Ethan debates calling 911, but decides to go over and try to diffuse the situation.
It turns out that the man arguing with Ro is Marty Mathis, someone she dated in high school, and someone Ethan truly has disliked. Marty leaves and Ro and Ethan catch up about the last couple of decades. Ro has become a police officer with the Minneapolis Police Department; Ethan is a showrunner who is desperately looking for an idea for the fourth season of his hit series, The Murder Show.
When Ro wants to talk to Ethan about an idea she has for his next season, he’s skeptical. It’s not the first time friends and acquaintances have approached him with ideas for his show that he can’t use. Ro suggests that his next season should be based on an actual event that occurred decades previously. An event they both were a part of, an event that extinguished the spark of romance that Ro and Ethan experienced.
Ethan’s family moved to Minneapolis when he was in high school. The first time he mows their backyard, he notices Ro, a pretty girl mowing the yard of the house directly behind them, a yard that merges onto their yard seamlessly with no fence or boundary demarcations between. In fact, from Ethan’s house you could see directly into Ro’s house. Ro runs out of gas for her mower, and she asks Ethan for help. On their trip to get gas, he meets some of Ro’s friends, including Ricky.
Ricky is the guy whose blood is dripping down at the start of the novel. He is a gregarious guy with a Pontiac Firebird he claims was gifted him by a rich uncle. He is generous to a fault and treats his friends to dinners and weekends at his cabin. One weekend, they are on a small rural Wisconsin road in the midst of a forest as Ricky drives them to his cabin. That’s when Ricky’s car breaks down. He says he knows of a resort a mile away, and that Ro and Ethan should stay with the car while he goes for help.
When Ricky hasn’t appeared after several hours, Ro and Ethan go in search of him. They find the resort, but not Ricky. It turns out that Ricky is dead, apparently in a car accident. After that, Ro and Ethan’s budding romance goes nowhere. The specter of Ricky’s death haunts them.
Now Ro reveals that recently another boy died in the same manner as Ricky. She investigated and found many similar deaths of young people along rural country roads. All were from Minneapolis, but their deaths occurred over five different neighboring states. She suggests that this might make a great basis for Ethan’s new season and that they should talk to their old high school friends about Ricky and what might have happened.
Ethan is home for a visit because the writers and actors are on strike, and until the strike is over, all production is halted. That means Ethan has a chance to find a blockbuster idea for his next season, and he really needs his proposal to be fabulous. The first season of his show was a hit, but subsequent seasons less so. The famous actress who starred in the series has been disenchanted with the long grueling hours. It would take a brilliant script for the studio to give it a go.
Ethan is far from convinced this is an idea he’ll be able to use, but he is intrigued by the thought of spending time with Ro and perhaps rekindling whatever it was that had sparked in their youth. The more they investigate, the more that Ethan realizes this could be just the story he needs to tell. Studios love a “based on real events” show, and because he was a part of it, in a way it’s “his story.” As their investigation progresses, he is mentally writing the script and taking notes.
The author is a television writer and he wrote this novel during the 2023 Writers Guild strike. That lends a feeling of veritas to the writing, and the inside look at how a showrunner thinks and plans shows is fascinating. But even more fascinating is the manner in which Goldman creates a cast of characters, some who arrive early in the performance, others who come in as the final acts unfold, all of whom are interesting in their own right.
There are plenty of false leads, a plethora of suspects, and suspicious events galore. While I had my suspicions about the perpetrator, there were plenty of other dubious characters who might have been behind the deaths. For a story that’s filled with violence and danger, Goldman’s ability to infuse humor into the narrative is brilliant. Ethan is self-deprecating and his interactions with his parents are truly funny. The story is a perfect balance of hard-driving investigation and touching relationships. You’ll be hooked until the last page.
This review was first posted on Bookreporter.com.