Review: THE MURDER CLUB

THE MURDER CLUB by Nikki Crutchley (Oak House Press, 2020)

Reviewed by Craig Sisterson

When the first letter arrives saying that ‘tonight it begins’, journalist Miller Hatcher ignores it. But then the body of a murdered woman is discovered, strangled, a scarf around her neck.

Cassie Hughes has always vowed to find the man who murdered her mother. Cassie knows he’s out there and wants him to pay, and Miller agrees to bring the cold case back into the public’s eye.

Logan Dodds has been obsessed with true crime ever since his sister was murdered thirty years ago. He has turned his obsession into a career and has created the True Crime Enthusiasts Club and his newest venture, True Crime Tours.

The lives of Miller, Cassie and Logan – all affected differently by murder – become entwined as The Scarf Killer, desperate for infamy, and Miller’s attention, makes his mark on the small town of Lentford.

Journalist Miller Hatcher’s career seemed about to skyrocket after she faced down a killer in a bucolic coastal town and lived to write about it. But following the events of Kiwi crime writer Nikki Crutchley’s auspicious debut NOTHING BAD HAPPENS HERE, which was shortlisted for the 2018 Ngaio Marsh Awards, Miller’s life fell apart in several ways.

Now Miller has lost her job at a national magazine and fled the big city. She’s living in her dead mother’s house in Lentford, a small town surrounded by farmland and countryside, and writing articles for the local community newspaper on the home renovations of successful townsfolk and high schoolers helping local pensioners. All while counting the days since she last had a drink. 

Then Miller receives a cryptic letter. A local woman is killed in her own home. Another letter arrives, another dead local.

Could the recovering journo be caught in some kind of game with a killer? As Miller’s friend DS Kahu Parata struggles to find any leads, Miller encounters Logan Dodds and Cassie Hughes, two troubled souls who are finding very different ways to try to cope with the long-ago murders of their own loved ones. Crutchley crafts an engaging portrait of small-town life, and keeps the pages turning with the interesting lives and struggles of her characters as much as with the intrigue of her whodunnit storyline. 

A good read.

Craig Sisterson is a lawyer turned features writer from New Zealand, now living in London. In recent years he’s interviewed hundreds of crime writers and talked about the genre on national radio, top podcasts, and onstage at books festivals on three continents. He has been a judge of the Ned Kelly Awards and the McIlvanney Prize, and is founder of the Ngaio Marsh Awards and co-founder of Rotorua Noir. His first non-fiction book, SOUTHERN CROSS CRIME, was published in 2020. You can heckle him on Twitter.