Holy CRAP! Author Matt Witten has knocked it so far out of the park YET AGAIN! I first became HOOKED on his writing after previewing a copy of his book “The Necklace”. Needless to say he pulled out all the stops on this one as well! Every single step of the way I thought I had solved the crime and to my surprise each and every time I was wrong!

This book kept me guessing and kept me up into the WEE hours of the night telling myself “just one more chapter!”

Journalist Petra Kovach has been fired from every newspaper she’s ever worked at. Just when she’s feeling comfortable and in her groove she finds out that she’s on the chopping block once again! Thanks to some quick wit and blind courage on Petra’s part, she manages to save her job and in return promises to deliver a Hit Podcast to her editor on the “Murder of the Century”. Emboldened by her ability to think on her feet and save her job, for now, she charges forward to solve the murder of her childhood best friend, can she do it? RUN, do NOT walk to get your copy and find out!

Hats off to author Matt Witten on yet another ENTHRALLING and CAPTIVATING Thriller!

This was such a hard book for me to try and love. Much less like in any sense of the word. I cannot stand a mc who completely disregards other people's lives because they need to get ahead. Ruining lives and stepping on the smaller people is never a way to get what you want. And this is the main premise in this book. Instead of actually working to find the truth she just runs with anything sensational enough to get her clicks. Just like someone else within the story, but different context.

I was absolutely disgusted through most of the book and I just couldn't keep going any longer.

2.5 rounded up to 3 for the readability factor.

This character right here, Petra Kovach is garbage. If the author intended her to be such, he nailed it. Nothing about her had any redeeming value and while I get you need to get a story, I mean, c’mon. She was willing to forego any little bit of integrity so she didn’t get fired again and the whole reasoning behind her deep need to know who did it, a tenuous connection to a kid she knew once, was lame. Early in the book I hated Natalie, still do, but I ended up hating Petra way more. And the actual killer? Another get real. The whole thing was just so out there and OTT. This was a dud for me for these reasons and the authors note at the end didn’t help me better understand anything.

A huge thank you to Net Galley and Ocean View Publications for the opportunity to review this novel. I was drawn to the synopsis of the book. The spin on social media news and views and the popularity of podcasts and youtube I find to be a new trend in psychological thrillers which I enjoy reading about.

In this story, Petra is a journalist on a string on back luck. She has been laid off from two journalist jobs and in an attempt to avoid being laid off her third job, pitches a story to solve the murder of a right-wing youtube activist, Olivia Anderson. Petra has a connection with Oliva as she was her camp counsellor. They were very close when she was younger and her killer was never found.

As Petra jumps in to solve the case, I can best describe the events which transpire as a train wreck. The book was fast paced but I was honestly cringing at all the horrible decisions Petra made through her investigation. Do all investigative journalists have little remorse for potentially ruining peoples lives? * shudder *

This book took me a while to get through because for some reason my advanced copy was jumbled. For example, the small letter "v" would not show up in the print and anything with a text was unreadable. However, I finally decided to get it finished. I did like the story despite it elevating my heartrate from the stress of decisions I certainly would never make.

The ending had a great twist, I knew something big was coming and was not disappointed. I would rate this 3.5 stars but rounding up to 4 stars for rating stars.

How far will she go to catch the killer—and make her podcast a hit?

Talented and idealistic young reporter Petra Kovach is on the brink of being laid off from her third failing newspaper in a row. To save her job, she pitches the launch of a true crime podcast about a sensational, unsolved murder.

Who doesn't love a good crime story that keeps you guessing?
Such a captivating story and a page-turner!

I found the MC Petra unlikable, i was gritting my teeth throughout the story. I just couldnt stand her especially with her methods, haste decisions and accusations without given a toss about its repercussion... her "the end justifies the means attitude was appalling as well as unrealistic in a media field"

At the end... Petra burns sources and breaks laws, ultimately putting her own life on the line.

As much as I couldn't stand her, i enjoyed the time I spent following her through to catch the killer I didn't expect.
This could have been an easy 5⭐ for me but I didn't really like any of the characters as much as I liked the story.

Indeed Killer Story is perfect for fans of Karin Slaughter and Harlan Coben.

I Recommend this!

Thank You NetGalley & Oceanview Publishing for this ARC.

A journalist and Podcaster who investigates a cold case, this was a great read and was super engaging

Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the advanced copy of the book.

Petra Kovach. 1st generation immigrant whose parents came over from somewhere in eastern Europe. They settled in eastern LA. Here grandfather was killed accidentally in a drive-by shooting when she was young. At around 8yo, she managed to the case reopened with an impassioned plea in a letter to the editor of the LA Times. While getting the case reopened, the killer was never identified. At this tender age, she decided that journalism would be her future.

As a teenager, she was a camp counselor and developed a close friendship with Olivia Johnson (Livvy) that they maintained after that summer. One connection is that both lost important people in their lives. Petra's grandfather and Livvy's mother. Petra goes on to UCLA and starts her career in print journalism. Livvy eventually enrolls at Harvard where she is a oddball. An unapologetic conservative amongst the liberal majority that inhabits Harvard. Livvy's stepfather works in the Swedish consulate in Boston and has an older brother, Eric, also in Boston area. As a freshman, Livvy dates the star football player, has a fling with a professor, and ends up being the victim of a vicious attack in her dorm room. The prof is arrested, tried and found not guilty. He's dumped by Harvard and the public hasn't forgotten about the killer professor. This happens 2yrs prior to the opening of the book.

Petra's career path has been bumpy, but she hasn't forgotten about Livvy and is desperate to track down the killer. Petra's been fired from two middling newspapers and she is trying it again at a second tier paper in Boston. And that ain't going well either. As the book opens, Petra's job appears to the on cutting board due to budget cuts. But Petra uses Livvy's story as a means to extend her stay with the paper and her editor agrees to let her put her efforts into the case. Petra suggests a podcast to accompany her newspaper reporting.

And here's where things get interesting. She has a competitor at the paper, Natalie, whom she despises. Her boyfriend (a tech startup whiz) who is sort of her moral compass. In the process of her 'pursuit of justice' she manages to . . . to reveal any or everything she does, or pisses off, or is entirely illegal would spoil the story. Let's just say that journalistic ethics takes a back seat to the pursuit of (aka: obsession with) this cold case by opening doors that needn't have been even touched and damaging the lives of anyone in her way. All in the name of getting content out on her podcast. The popularity of the podcast explodes from being a local story all the way to CNN.

I have to say that there were multiple times that I said to myself, "Good Lord. Just quit. Move on to the next book." Because I didn't like Petra. She's conniving, manipulative, cloying, annoying and obsessed with the case and the sudden popularity of her podcast; damn anyone who gets in her way. But I stuck it out against my better wishes. Yeah, we find out who actually killed Livvy. That's always important in any attempt at reviving a cold case, but that's almost secondary. More importantly, we find out the consequences of Petra's actions to herself and to the people she stepped on all in pursuit of the almighty click count.

After finishing the book, I thought my review wouldn't be all that favorable. Then I started thinking that maybe that was the author's point. To present a main character so utterly devoid of ethics that the reader has no choice but to despise her. If that was the point, then Whitten was successful. As I was reading, I started wondering if Whitten was setting us up for a new character series to which I would've said, 'Nope. No chance of reading a Petra Kovach #2.' Once finished, I realized #2 isn't gonna happen.

I hope.

I like to check up on the author. Whitten is a TV writer for such shows as House, Law & Order, CSI: Miami, JAG, The Glades, Homicide, Judging Amy, and more. His works have been nominated for Emmy and Edgar awards. One of his past books (The Necklace) is in production by Hollywood. The guy can write and weave a compelling story. Methinks getting us to despise Petra was his intent right from the start.

Thanks to Netgalley and Oceanview Publishing for making an advance copy available. Regular readers will know that I'm an unapologetic supporter of the Oceanview Publishing. While reading the book, I was thinking that this might be the first hiccup for Oceanview. But the further I get from the book, the most I think that the author was skillfully playing with us with his portrayal of Petra. Even so, I still don't like Petra Kovach.

Several years before Petra is about to be laid off from her job as a reporter, a You Tuber was killed in her dorm room and the killer was never caught. Petra was friends with the victim and she decides to investigate the cold case. You will find yourself wondering how far she will go to find the truth as you read this storyline. You won’t put this one down until you finish reading it! I would recommend the book and the author.

A deeply immersive murder mystery. I was pulled in from the get go. When protagonist Petra is about to be laid off from her journalist position, yet again, she panics and tells her boss that she has a lead on one of the most famous murder cases of the past few years, that of eighteen year old youtuber Olivia. Of course, she doesn't really have any new information on the case, but she is willing to do anything, and I do mean anything, to save her job. How far will she really go to find the truth? Do the ends justify the means? Pick up Killer Story and find out.
As other reviews mention, Petra is quite the unlikable protagonist. She does pretty vile things in her search for the truth (and more podcast downloads). At the start, it's easy to connect with her. She's idealistic and really does want to find justice for Olivia. However she quickly steps over the line and into very predatory journalistic practices. But... you don't have to love the main character to love a story, and this mystery was deep and compelling. I devoured this novel and am curious to see what else the author has to offer.

After reading The Necklace I really expected big things from this story. I was just a little let down. But only a little.
I didn't really like the main character at all. She came across as a self-centered egotistical, out only for herself, person. I could say more but refrain. While I didn't like her I did understand a bit why she was the way she was. Though I believe she could have been a nicer person. Maybe.

Her friend was murdered and Petra does not believe that her murder has been solved. She sets out to find the real killer. Or to at least help solve this crime. Justice for her friend. Some of the things that Petra does are a bit questionable but I did understand. Her back story is very interesting also. She's going to keep you on the edge with some of the things she does. Very good. Very very good.

I really enjoyed this story. I always enjoy one that keeps me on the edge.

Thank you #NetGalley, #MattWitten, #OceanviewPublishing for this ARC. This is my own true thoughts about this book.

4.75 stars. I do recommend it. It's very good.

Petra's career as a journalist isn't going well. In fact, she's about to be laid off... again. In a panic, she throws out an idea to her boss - a podcast about a murdered Youtube-ing coed that Petra knew years ago. Petra promises that she can bring something new and exciting to this story - but how far is she willing to go to make it big?

I had a hard time reading this book. Like Petra, I, too, work in a field where ethics is super important, and it was so hard to watch her throwing her ethics - and, at times, her relationships - down the drain to further her career and increase the popularity of the podcast. I do love a good novel about a podcast, though, so I still had a hard time putting it down and wanted to see whether Petra would actually find the real murderer.

This story was a quick read and did hold my interest enough to want to find out how it ended. But just barely. The main character was just a terrible person. Just horrible. Delusional, self-obsessed, completely without a shred of integrity or ethics. The amount of damage she did to innocent peoples' lives was unbelievable.

Even more unbelievable was her editor allowing her unfounded accusations to make it into print and on the internet. No legitimate media outlet would allow her to make the accusations she did without clearing some of it with the paper's legal department to keep them from being sued. And they would have been sued for what Petra did, many times over.

When you grow to actively hate the main character over the course of a book, the author has either done exactly what he meant to do or completely failed at his job. In the case of Killer Story, I think it's the latter.

*Thank you to Oceanview Publishing, Matt Witten and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review*

Previously posted at https://www.mysteryandsuspense.com/killer-story/

“Journalism without a moral position is impossible. Every journalist is a moralist. It’s unavoidable.”
– Marguerite Duras

Petra Kovach is a terrible person and an even more terrible journalist. To save her job at The Clarion, a small Boston newspaper, she will out you if you are gay, falsely accuse you of murder, break into your house or accuse you of having a sexual relationship with your teenage daughter. If it helps her keep her job or get more interest in her podcast, she will ruin your life with no regrets. Petra is the main character in Killer Story and one of the most unlikeable characters I have read lately. Not only is she an unreliable narrator but has no moral clause as a journalist. That being said, Killer Story is actually a brilliant book if you can look past the female main character. And the focus becomes her and her terrible choices, rather than who murdered Olivia Anderson, an alt-right podcaster at Harvard with hateful views on immigrants, homosexuals or anyone else she decides might be worthy of her disdain.

It has been two years since Olivia has been killed. Petra was very close friends with her until Olivia started spewing hate in the name of patriots everywhere. She even outs a victim of rape who is accusing her friend of the crime. There are lots of people who would have a reason to hurt her, but the blame has landed on a professor at Harvard, that she was having an affair with. Unfortunately, they fail to convict him but he is believed by all of Olivia’s zealous fans to be the murderer and they harass him enough to go into hiding. Or it could be her boyfriend, who Petra speculates is gay, and that Olivia was going to out him. Or her stepfather, whom Petra believes had a sexual relationship with Olivia when she was just 14. When it turns out Petra’s job may be made redundant (3 times in so many years), she tells her boss, Dave, that she may have a lead on the murder of Olivia and that is going to be an enormous story. He runs with her “killer” story and she becomes even more embroiled in all the lies she tells. Even roping in her lovable fiance, think Adrian Grenier from The Devil Wears Prada, who may lose his own job in helping her.

What is Petra’s plan? She pitches a podcast about the cold case murder of Olivia. Though most believe they solved the case with the Harvard Professor as the murderer, Petra believes the killer is still out there and that it had to do with a podcast that Olivia had teased three days before her death. When she meets Olivia’s brother, he offers her information off the record and asks her not to use him as the source. But what is a story without a named source? She uses it anyway and starts destroying lives.

When I first started this book, I wasn’t as focused on the mystery as I was on how this journalist could live with herself. It was a very uncomfortable few chapters of seeing Petra Kovach in action. Once I absorbed myself in the mystery, I became more entrenched and unable to put the book down. I hoped for two things; for Petra to get her comeuppance and for the mystery of who killed Olivia Anderson to be solved. Only one of those actually happened. I had previously read Matt Witten’s The Necklace so I know he writes a good story and this was really enjoyable to read once you understand that none of the characters are likable and it is supposed to be that way.

⭐⭐⭐⭐/5

• journalism thriller
• fun twists
• loved the podcast aspect

Our MC is one ballsy, manipulative woman but it sure was fun to follow her around while she was getting her "killer story!" The writing was easy and the whole concept of the book made me realize just how cutthroat the journalism/media industry is... 😳 The Author's Note at the end made me appreciate the whole concept of this book even more.

🗣️ Thank you to @netgalley and @oceanviewpub for the opportunity to read and review this book via gifted eARC! All opinions are honest and my own.

I did not like the MC. She was so unlikeable. I felt like she just did whatever she had to do to get ahead without any regard to anyone. I was not a fan. It made it hard for me to connect to the story

Thank you Netgalley, Oceanview publishing and Matt Witten for the Arc of this book.

This is my second Matt Witten book so I was highly anticipating reading this one.

Overall it was a good read however the main character was totally unlikeable and did so many silly things that I was almost always frustrated at her.

I love a podcast crime solving trope and this one was good in that aspect despite my issues with the main character.

The ending twist was good and I did enjoy that we didn't really get all that closure until the end.

KILLER STORY delivers page after page of surprises through the eyes of Petra Kovach, a journalist about to be laid off again from yet another newspaper. Author Matt Witten bravely acknowledges that financial uncertainty is a type of trauma. Other than the love for telling the truth and spotlighting stories on issues, it's been a curiosity why anyone enters journalism these days. Every story is reduced to soundbites. Coverage on a long story would be three minutes on television. In written stories, people rarely continue reading beyond the second paragraph. Petra Kovach and her managing boss are on the chopping block until she comes with a proposition that might save their asses: a true crime podcast.

Petra is obsessed with the murder of an old friend—a girl she knew when they were teens and Petra was a camp counselor. Olivia Anderson's life takes turns Petra would never have guessed. She goes from bright-eyed and idealistic teen journalist to a college vlogger spouting alt-right, misogynistic rants full of victim-blaming, denials, and accusations of hot button news around Harvard. Despite her personality at the time of her murder, Petra wants to solve Olivia's murder.

As each chapter ends on a cliffhanger, readers just might find Petra Kovach as shady and unlikeable as I did. She loses all her ethics as a journalist in order to make a name for herself in podcasting. It feels like she's constantly getting way with selfish behavior. Her fiancé Jonah tries to be Petra's conscience. Their relationship crumbling through the course of the book is the first consequence Petra ever faces for her selfish decisions. Somehow, she keeps stringing Jonah along from one lie to the next. She does the same to her boss and her sources! Petra is conniving yet that's how she describes her ultra-competitive co-worker Natalie, the newspaper's golden goose reporter on the crime beat.

Petra is simply a terrible human being. I did not root for her to find Olivia's killer after chapter two. Plus, due to her politics, Olivia Anderson doesn't feel like a sympathetic victim at all either, which is intentional by author Matt Witten. According to his comments in the Author's Notes at the back, he expressed curiosity for what happens to someone so young and vulnerable that can lead them to manipulative people who implant dangerous thoughts in their heads. He used Tomi Lahren as inspiration. There is also a section for book club discussion questions.

What I did love was Witten's knack for describing people. It's a modern take on the choppy old noir style. He lets short sentences flow in a cadence that gives what a reader needs to know in order to make their own assumptions about what someone would be like. Maybe this is considered neo-noir. There is one gun. Olivia comes across as an ingenue. Natalie is the femme fatale. Protagonist Petra has definitely been down on her luck before she pitches this investigative reporting podcast.

Content Warnings:
Sexual Assault
Suicide
Gunfire
Incest

Thank you Netgalley for this ARC of Killer Story by Matt Witten.

This was an unexpected riot to read. I love a good villain origin story, especially a surprise one.

Petra Kovach (amazing name BTW) is a down on her luck journalist who just cannot seem to keep a job. So when her current job threatens layoffs, she pitches a story that her boss cannot refuse. She is going to find out who killed the notorious alt right woman with a twitter that is always infuriating. Even though the crime has officially been solved, Petra knows that there is more to the story, and she will stop at nothing to find out the truth behind the murder.

I don't want to give anything away, but I really loved going on this devolving journey with Petra. I rolled my eyes, laughed, and groaned more often than I can count, but in the way that you do when listening to really piping hot tea. Very fun, a great splashy read.

This was a very interesting read. The main character was not likable through most of the book .She did a lot of things that just don't sit right with you. I guess if you were in the same situation maybe some people would do the same thing. This book had twists and turns through out. I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it.

Thanks NetGalley and Oceanview Publishing for allowing me to read this ARC.

Thanks to Oceanview Publishing and NetGalley for providing me with a free ARC in return for my honest review.
Well, there are a lot of issues in this book, with the main plot involving a young journalist, who has been fired 3 times in her early career, now trying to hold on to a new position at a Boston newspaper by doing a True Crime podcast in which she attempts to find the killer of a childhood friend. If the police cannot find the killer then Petra, our protagonist, is going to reveal the identity. Now this starts the 2nd theme in the book which deals with the reliability of podcast information, and lastly journalistic ethics. It is all there as we follow Petra in her quest. But is the quest to find the killer or save here job, and what will she do in order to get the results she wants.
A very readable book, that deals with todays journalism, and the rapidly expanding world of podcast, instant journalism and down right the competition for success and money from advertisers.
The deeper you get into the book the more these issues come to the fore and one must wonder if solving the mystery of who killed the young lady (Livvy) is really the top priority.
Well written, fast paced book that deals with todays society and issues that come along with new journalism. You may question Petra, but you cannot question the quality of this book!