Review: How To Kill Men and Get Away With It by Katy Brent

 

Title: How To Kill Men and Get Away With It

Author: Katy Brent

Published: 12th October 2022, HQ Digital UK

Status: Read October 2022 courtesy HQ Digital/Netgalley

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My Thoughts:

 

How To Kill Men and Get Away With It is an entertaining, satirical thriller from debut novelist Katy Brent.

“Before all this started, I’d thought that squeezing the life out of someone would be easy. The right amount of pressure on their windpipe and they’d just go limp, like when a kitten suddenly falls asleep. It’s actually nothing like that.”

The first victim of trust fund baby and popular social media influencer, Kitty Collins’s killing spree, was an accident. She’d simply shoved the drunken sleaze who followed her from a bar away from her and he fell on the broken wine bottle he’d been threatening her with. The next took more planning. Kitty’s targets are cheaters, liars and predators, men who leave ruined women in their wake without a backward glance, like her ex, Adam, and her father. It’s a much more noble calling than posting photos of herself online. Conveniently, as the heiress to Collins Cuts (even if she is vegan and refuses her share of the profits), she has the perfect disposal method available. There are rules, of course, the most important is to not get caught, but Kitty also has a stalker who seems to know every move she makes.

“I want to live in a world where I don’t have to keep my keys between my fingers in case I’m attacked walking home. Not that I do that. I find a serrated hunting knife and a syringe of GHB much more reassuring.”

In case it’s not clear, this is a satirical revenge fantasy so the the plot has a tenuous basis in reality, and the characters, including Kitty, are more properly caricatures. That said, Brent’s commentary about violence against women in society is on point. I honestly think they’d be few women who weren’t at least a little gratified by the way Kitty turns the table on badly behaved men.

“Red eyes, blue lips, a pale yellowing skin. Oh, and some gorgeous shades of purple later as the blood pools in the lowest parts of the body. The colour palette of death is really rather pretty.”

Full of dark humour, I really like the tone Brent strikes with Kitty’s voice. The sardonic descriptions of mayhem and murder contrasts effectively with our perception of a gushing influencer. Kitty is not particularly likeable, nor is she reliable, but she is amusing and pretty bad ass.

“I look like a walking wet dream. I’m hideous.”

There’s a twist or three to the tale, because no woman is perfect. All are fairly easy to predict but they are fun and generally satisfying anyway.

A delightfully wicked story, I enjoyed How To Kill Men and Get Away With It, perhaps a teeny bit more than I should of.

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Available from HQ Digital UK

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