The Murder Show: A Novel

by Matt Goldman

Overview

The Murder Show is a pulse-racing novel about secrets, old friends, and how the past never leaves us by New York Times bestselling and Emmy Award winning author Matt Goldman!

Showrunner Ethan Harris had a hit with The Murder Show, a television crime drama that features a private detective who solves cases the police can’t. But after his pitch for the fourth season is rejected by the network, he returns home to Minnesota looking for inspiration.

His timing is fortunate — his former classmate Ro Greeman is now a local police officer, and she's uncovered new information about the devastating hit and run that killed their mutual friend Ricky the summer after high school. She asks Ethan to help her investigate and thinks that if he portrays the killing on The Murder Show, the publicity may bring Ricky's killer to justice.

Ethan is skeptical that Ricky's death was anything but a horrible accident, but with the clock running out on his career, he's willing to try anything. It doesn't take long for them to realize they've dug up more than they bargained for. Someone is dead set on stopping Ethan and Ro from looking too closely into Ricky’s death — even if keeping them quiet means killing again...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250325723
Publisher:	Tor Publishing Group
Publication date:	04/15/2025
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

New York Times bestselling author MATT GOLDMAN is a playwright and Emmy Award-winning television writer for Seinfeld, Ellen, and other shows. Goldman has been nominated for the Shamus and Nero Awards and was a Lariat Adult Fiction Reading List selection. He lives in Minnesota with his wife, pets, and whichever children happen to be around.

Editorial Reviews

03/03/2025

Goldman (Still Waters) disappoints with this rote thriller about a TV showrunner who uncovers a pattern of violence in his hometown. Ethan Harris returns home to Minneapolis during a Hollywood writers’ strike, afraid that his crime series, The Murder Show, will be canceled if he doesn’t formulate a strong concept for the upcoming fourth season. Serendipitously, he runs into Ro Greeman, an old classmate and former flame who’s become a cop in the years since both graduated from high school. She immediately offers a suggestion for Harris’s show: 22 years earlier, their friend, Ricky O’Shea, was killed by a hit-and-run driver, and Ro suspects that his death was linked to 11 similar cases that occurred over the past 30 years. While writing up a storm, Ethan agrees to help Ro investigate. When an unseen assailant shoots at them, they realize they’re onto something. Goldman lapses into purple prose (“Time ticked to nowhere as their lips and hands said what their voices had been unable to articulate”), and the plotting feels overfamiliar. There’s not much to see here. Agent: Jennifer Weltz, Jean V. Naggar Literary. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

Praise for Matt Goldman

"First-class...The often amusing dialogue flows naturally, the emotional undercurrents ring true, and the mystery itself offers a full complement of suspects and motives. This novel about love, loss, and family ties isn’t to be missed." —Publishers Weekly, starred review, on Carolina Moonset

“Goldman has an unerring ear for snappy dialogue and a poet’s eye for the beauty of nature. This is a compelling story of how the past is never truly the past, and how we make sense of the gifts that are offered us in every present moment. I loved this book.”—William Kent Krueger on Carolina Moonset

“A writer to watch.” —Harlan Coben

“A perfect blend of light touch and dark story.” —Lee Child on Gone to Dust

From the Publisher