Book Review: Killer Content | Olivia Blacke

Set in Brooklyn and featuring a bayou babe who works at a book and coffee shop, murder goes viral in Killer Content, a debut cozy mystery by Olivia Blacke.

About the Book

Bayou transplant Odessa Dean has a lot to learn about life in Brooklyn. So far she’s scored a rent free apartment in one of the nicest neighborhoods around by cat-sitting, and has a new job working at Untapped Books & Café. Hand-selling books and craft beers is easy for Odessa, but making new friends and learning how to ride the subway? Well, that might take her a little extra time.

But things turn more sour than an IPA when the death of a fellow waitress goes viral, caught on camera in the background of a couple’s flash-mob proposal video. Nothing about Bethany’s death feels right to Odessa–neither her sudden departure mid-shift nor the clues that only Odessa seems to catch. As an up-and-coming YouTube star, Bethany had more than one viewer waiting for her to fall from grace.

Determined to prove there’s a killer on the loose, Odessa takes matters into her own hands. But can she pin down Bethany’s killer before they take Odessa offline for good?

Review

I may be a Chicago girlie, but I do love to read a book set in New York (just don’t ask me to move there, I would be overwhelmed!). Odessa Dean left behind her job at the Crawdad Shack in the tiny town of Piney Island, Louisiana, to head to the big apple. Why is she moving to Brooklyn from small town, Louisiana? Her Aunt Melanie is headed to Europe for several months and asked her to housesit (and catsit) in her Williamsburg apartment for free rent.

Odessa gets a job at Untapped Books & Café, a far cry from the local, fried seafood she was serving at the Crawdad Shack. Now she mostly serves hipsters their overpriced appetizers, craft beer, and whatever high-priced food item is trendy that week. Chef Parker Reed has a great talent and does his best to offer a range of food that is vegan, gluten-free, keto, pescatarian, and any other dietary preference you can think up.

Odessa is enjoying her job, but it’s been difficult to make friends in such a large and fast-paced city. It doesn’t help that Odessa is essentially a Brooklynaire due to her fancy, rent-free home, while most of her colleagues are struggling to afford places a fraction of the size. Odessa doesn’t have time to wallow in her own woes when her coworker Bethany asks her to take over her customers during the busiest time of the day.

Bethany is not just a waitress, she’s a youtuber who aspires to one day go viral for her artisanal soaps. Odessa happens to catch a viral video on YouTube that day. While it doesn’t feature any artisanal soaps, it does show a woman falling off the elevated pedestrian walkway in Domino Park in a recognizable neon green shirt—the uniform of Untapped Books & Café waitresses. Though the detective assures Odessa that Bethany’s death was an accident, she’s suspicious that something more nefarious happened to her colleague and sets out to prove it.

Odessa is a fun leading character—she’s sarcastic and relatable. Her coworkers are less-likable (at least at first). Her boss often asks her to do tasks that aren’t exactly in a waitressing job description, and her coworkers gossip about her behind her back (only she can hear them). A true Southern belle, Odessa continues to be nice to them despite their behavior.

And all of us non-hipsters can find some fun in the absurd and sometimes pretentious patrons and staff who would rather die than do something uncool (bad joke, given what happens to Bethany). I liked that Blacke reversed what would usually happen in a cozy mystery, where we’d see a woman leave behind New York City and move to a small town like Piney Island, Louisiana. Blacke has her heroine doing the opposite. This was such a fun change!

Odessa feels like all of her experience listening to true crime podcasts and scrolling the internet has given her all the skills she needs to help solve the mystery of what happened to Bethany. I wish the mystery had been more present in the story. There isn’t even a hint of a viable suspect or motive until about three-quarters of the way through the book.

As much as I loved Odessa, this did detract a bit from the “mystery” aspect of a cozy mystery. It did lead to a very character-driven mystery, as we learned much more about Odessa than the usual cozy lead. I also liked that she didn’t have a romance in this book—a trope that every cozy mystery peddles like their heroine can’t live a fulfilling life if she’s single.

Odessa is also funny, but she’s almost too nice sometimes (don’t get me started on the roommate situation with Izzy). That does feel authentic to a small town girl moving to NYC, but it made me doubt her credibility as a detective just a smidge.

Overall this is a fun start to a mystery series with some fresh takes on the genre. It was a bit light on the mystery for me, but an enjoyable read.

Thank you to Berkley Publishing for my copy. Opinions are my own.