I Bet You’d Look Good In a Coffin – Katy Brent

Published By: HQ
Pages: 336
Released On: 30/01/2025

My name is Kitty Collins and I’m a serial killer.

I don’t want to kill. It’s just so hard to resist. Some men really, really deserve it.

Men like Blaze Bundy, an anonymous influencer spreading misogyny online. He’s making it very hard for me to control my murderous urges.

Meanwhile I’m in the South of France to watch my mother marry a man I’ve never met. I should be drinking cocktails and focusing on my tan, not plotting a murder.

But a woman’s work is never done. Surely one more teensy little kill wouldn’t hurt, would it?

*****

Thanks to NetGalley and HQ for the advanced copy of this title in return for an honest review.

Oh how I loved the first book – How to Kill Men and Get Away With It. I didn’t feel short changed or like I needed a sequel and so was intrigued how she was going to do it.

It gets right in there, there’s no preamble. Sequels can be a tricky thing. You sort of have three options:

1. Repeat everything that happened in the first one so that a reader can start with the second
2. Don’t mention anything from the first one and instead rely on the reader remembering
3. Hint and reference things from the first one but assume the reader has read it but maybe can’t remember everything about it, especially if there’s been a big gap between the two books

This book goes with option three. Now, I’m lucky that I received this book as an early copy and so read it shortly after the first one, and so I remembered the majority of what happened. Having said that, I read a lot of books, and so not everything was that easy to remember, but with a few key references to the first book, I was right in. I think Katy has found the right balance in reminding the reader what happened but not just regurgitating the entire story.

There is less death in this one. Don’t get me wrong, there’s still death and it’s still satisfying, but they’re more thought through by Kitty, planned a bit more, which in a way makes them all the worse because there’s more detail.

There is also a lot more focus on the characters and their relationships with each other which was nice. I got to know them in the first book, but this book gave me time to really understand them.

I felt much more angry at this book. Not at the book itself as such, but at the topic. About misogyny, about senseless attacks on women (and men, but the focus is on women in this book and so I shall focus on that too). If only it was true just in fictional books, rather than reflected in reality. It is an entertaining and enjoyable story, I get it, it’s fictional, but I think it starts an important conversation, and I think that’s what more stories should do – open up a conversation.

I do have another of Katy’s books – The Murder After the Night Before – which I assumed was just another Kitty Collins book, but I don’t think it is, but it is on the same wavelength. And so I’m happy that I’ve got that waiting for me.

I read it in a day. It is so inviting and addictive. It reminds me in a way of C.J Skuse’s Sweetpea series, which is another series I absolutely love, and I really want more books like this.

I really hope she continues with this Kitty series – it certainly looks like she will. Each book ends in a satisfying way but there’s definitely room for more stories, and I am definitely all for it. They’re fun and funny and gory and they’re just great to read. I’ve recommended them to several people already.