The Other Murder

 Sometimes, the most dangerous thing . . . is the truth

The Other Murder

by Kevin G. Chapman

Genre: Mystery, Suspense

“A sleek, gripping thriller that raises important questions about truth and justice.” ~Kirkus Reviews

FINALIST -- 2023 CLUE AWARD

Sometimes, the most dangerous thing . . . is the truth.

For disgraced cable news producer Hannah Hawthorne, covering the shooting of a pretty NYU sophomore is a chance for redemption. When the story snowballs into a media circus, Hannah’s reporting fans the sensationalistic flames and earns her acclaim. The tragic murder, seemingly the result of random urban gun violence, prompts protests and vigils that further magnify the story.

Meanwhile, Paulo, a reporter for a small online neighborhood newspaper, is following the other murder in Washington Square Park that same night – a Hispanic teen. He discovers an unexpected connection that is political dynamite. When Hannah and Paulo team up, they uncover disturbing facts, leading them to question everything they thought they knew. Their reporting also leads them to the man who might be the killer.

When the story is ready to explode, the truth may be hotter than anyone can handle. Breaking the next scoop could ruin Paulo’s paper and wreck Hannah’s career – and it could get them both killed.

If you like David Baldacci's page-turners, Michael Connelly’s cops, and Sara Paretsky’s quirky characters, you will love The Other Murder.

INTERVIEW

Interviewer: How did you develop the idea for The Other Murder, and what inspired you to explore the intersection of media, law enforcement, and personal biases in the narrative?

Kevin: I’m a lawyer who works for a media company and writes crime thrillers, so the three most significant elements of my professional life all come together in The Other Murder. The story sprang from my non-original observation that pretty, affluent White girls who are missing or killed tend to dominate the news cycles. We often hear statistics about the number of murders and violent crimes in a particular city, but seldom (if ever) see significant media coverage given to a minority victim who isn’t rich and famous. This phenomenon, could be called “unconscious bias,” but is likely more a conscious choice by producers and media executives to feature stories that will tend to get the biggest ratings. Particularly in broadcast news, including 24-hour cable news networks, getting eyes on your story is the most important thing. The story that can be made sensationalistic and which involves a victim that your viewers will sympathize with and relate to is the story you feature. That’s good economics, but leads to a slanted presentation of the world. I wanted to make this murder mystery a story that gets inside that culture and lets my readers see all sides of the story as it unfolds.

Interviewer: The story involves two journalists and two homicide detectives. How did you approach developing these characters, and what challenges did you face in creating complex relationships between them while navigating the intricacies of the murder mystery?

Kevin: The real “leads” of this story are the two journalists. Each of them has positive and negative attributes and each makes choices that are both selfish and noble – the two being not mutually exclusive. I wanted my cable news producer to be understood in the context of her job, her bosses, and her ambitions. I wanted the print journalist to be understood as someone who could have a “better” job, but who has a calling both to journalism and to his community. Their interactions disclose their similarities and differences as well as the nature of the business in which they work. And, of course, it’s a murder story so there must be cops. Here, the cops don’t have all the information and need the help of the journalists. The two partners have their own problems, including a recent incident that set them at odds. Through their eyes, the reader learns things the journalists don’t know and sees the way the media coverage affects the police investigation. Making the characters the focus of the story lets me tell the mystery story through interesting eyes.

I have always loved the mysteries of Sara Paretsky, whose characters are the heart and soul of her books. In the Mike Stoneman Thriller series, I had a fixed set of main characters to be my narrators. They, and their minor-character companions, gave me a universe of backstories to weave into the mysteries. Here, in this stand-alone story, I had to create brand new characters and get my readers to relate to them and care about them. My goal, like Ms. Paretsky, is to make my readers as interested in the stories of the players as they are about the underlying “main” plot. The plot needs to hold them together, but the characters need to behave in a way that is both realistic and interesting.

I’m always disappointed in a book when the characters are stupid, make irrational decisions (for the sake of advancing the plot), and where the logic of the story doesn’t hold together. I want my plots to make sense – in the context of the fictional facts. This past year I read a best-seller called Just the Nicest Couple, by Mary Kubica, who has a big publisher and whose new book sold a zillion copies based on her stellar reputation. But the plot was a mess, the characters made nothing but bad decisions, the key bits of information made no sense, and the ending was entirely unsatisfying. And, along the way, none of the characters were likable. I didn’t care whether they all ended up dead or in jail because they were all idiots. I’m hoping nobody thinks that about The Other Murder.

Interviewer: How did you handle the portrayal of racism in the novel, and what message do you hope readers will take away from this aspect of the story?

Kevin: The main plot here involves the subtle racism that permeates the media and, to some extent, the police and the city officials, who are driven by publicity (positive or negative) and public perception. When the media tells the public that a situation is a horrible tragedy and an example of a huge problem that needs to be fixed, crowds gather, memorials are created, politicians and activists make speeches, and the media feeds on itself to amplify the story. Government officials like the mayor and the police commissioner react by making that crime a priority and devoting resources to solving it. Catching that killer matters because everyone is watching. In this story, the second murder involves a Latino boy with a history of gang membership. It garners no media attention and would have generated minimal police interest – until the cops discover that Javier Estrada’s murder may be connected to the White girl, Angelica Monroe. The immediately reported story is that Angelica was an innocent victim of urban gun violence. She becomes a saint. Javier Estrada is ignored.

Meanwhile, the two detectives on the cases are a White man and a Hispanic woman. Mariana is the only character involved in the police investigation who cares about Javier’s story. Similarly, only Paulo Richardson, the local newspaper reporter, cares about Javier’s portrayal in the press. Paulo wants to make people see the truth about Javier. Mariana wants her colleagues to see that the White girl isn’t always the victim and the Latino boy is not always the criminal. The investigation also lays bare the recent rift between Mariana and her partner, Dru Cook, arising from an incident of police brutality. Was that incident racially motivated? Dru didn’t think so. Mariana saw it differently.

In the end, once the reader has all the facts (or, at least all the different versions of the facts), the question of who is a little bit racist and where motives and biases get mixed together makes things a lot less clear cut. My hope is that the reader not only enjoys the story and cares about the characters, but that the tale makes them think a little bit about their own perceptions.

Interviewer: The story involves two murders on the same night—one garnering intense media attention and the other mostly ignored. How did you balance the narrative between these two cases, and what narrative choices did you make to ensure both stories were effectively told?

Kevin: It was fun weaving together the four points-of-view in the story. Through each one (and the two detectives are one joint POV), the reader has more information than any of the individual characters. I had to deconstruct the story at one point and separate out each POV into its own sub-story to make sure that all the events and facts stayed straight. When the POVs collide at different points in the book (and all of them together in the climax), it was a juggling act to make each story compelling while allowing the reader to “view” the action in a coherent way so that it all made sense.  It was even more of a challenge when narrating the audiobook, where I was jumping back and forth between the voices!

Part of the challenge was making sure there was enough of a mystery for the reader to try to figure out, and how to keep them guessing.

Interviewer: The novel challenges readers to guess what happened, indicating mystery and suspense. How did you craft the tension in the narrative, and what techniques did you employ to keep readers engaged in solving the mystery?

Kevin: In the first draft of the story, chapter one gave the reader a view into all the events that happened leading up to and including the murders of Angelica and Javier. I’ll be publishing that chapter as a “deleted scene” on my website after the book has been out for a while. I realized after the first draft was done that letting the reader know what happened and then following the investigations by the police and the journalists with that knowledge was not fully satisfying as a mystery. The story was: “how are they going to figure it out?” rather than “what happened?” 

So, I went back and deleted most of that first chapter and re-wrote the story so that the journalists and the police (along with the reader) are piecing together the facts, without knowing for sure who is giving them good information, which of their assumptions are correct, and what information they are missing. This allows the reader to guess where the characters have it right, and what might be wrong. Even at the end, nobody (including the reader) can be 100% sure they know the whole truth.

Elements of the plot changed to the point that I sometimes got confused about what had happened in the earlier chapters of the current version. I had two of my typokiller readers point out where one of the characters made an important observation – that was not true in the version of the facts that they could have known. (Thank you to all my typokillers and Beta readers!)

Interviewer: The novel highlights the danger of the truth. Can you elaborate on the significance of this theme and how it plays into the challenges faced by the characters, particularly Hannah and Paulo, as they uncover disturbing facts?

Kevin: The tag line of the book was one of the first things I wrote after outlining the basic story. “Sometimes, the most dangerous thing . . . is the truth.” It is a common observation that humans are significantly influenced by what is called in psychology “recency bias.” Your strongest memories and emotions are attached to the things that happened most recently. It is also true in media that the first story is the one that gets imprinted in people’s memories, particularly if it sparks strong emotions. When asked whether one of two things is true, the one you heard first is the one you are more likely to believe.

One of the core messages of The Other Murder is that people need to be careful about believing the first narrative they hear. But the reality is that, once a set of facts is in your head, it is hard to push it out. This is especially true when the original narrative reinforces your personal views and political objectives. Telling people who are emotionally, financially, and politically invested in one version of a story that the story they heard and want to believe is really a false narrative – is a dangerous thing to do.

In the media world, once you have established your narrative and “hooked” your audience, it’s hard to switch gears and retain your viewers if you suddenly try to tell them that what you had been telling them is false and that there’s a new truth they should switch to. They are likely to switch – to a different news source that will reinforce their belief in the original story. That is part of the challenge facing Paulo and Hannah.

Interviewer: Where can our readers learn more about you and The Other Murder?

Kevin: The Other Murder is now available (as of February 29th) as an ebook for your Kindle via Amazon.com at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJN6W5NJ. Amazon can also sell you a paperback or a hardcover. Paperbacks and hardcovers are also available through select independent bookstores and via Bookshop.org, which supports local bookstores. The audiobook version is available via CHIRP, iTunes, Googleplay, Roku, Nook (Barnes & Noble), LIBRO.FM (which also supports independent bookstores) and on Audible. All my other titles are also available at all the same retailers. Readers can contact me and see all my content at https://www.KevinGChapman.com.

EXCERPT

Chapter 1 — Friday in the Park

 

Friday

 

 

 

JAVIER HEARD A SCREAM.

       He was heading home after leaving the basketball court at Sixth Avenue and 3^rd Street. His pick-up team had won three straight games. He could have remained on the court for another, but he had promised his mom he would be home by nine o’clock. His boss at the supermarket wanted him stocking shelves by six a.m. and didn’t permit late arrivals. He took his usual route, cutting through Washington Square Park on his way to the NYCHA apartment building on 6^th Street, between Avenue C and the FDR Drive. The courts in the park along the East River were closer to home, but the college scouts only watched the Sixth Avenue games, where the best street players dazzled spectators.

       The scream stopped him as he trotted along a paved path curving between the trees, thick with fragrant spring blossoms. Looking left, he tried to convince himself that the sound might not have been a cry of distress—and that it might not have been from a woman. People yelled for all kinds of reasons. A dropped cell phone or a mean Tweet could prompt one. He resolved to ignore it and keep going. He needed to make sure his little brother got to bed before his mom got home from working the evening shift at the hospital. Spring pollen hung in the still air, leaving a pungent smell that mixed with the Italian sausages languishing on a rolling food cart’s grill a few hundred feet to the south.

       Two strides later, he heard it again—this time louder and more clearly a cry of pain and fear, almost certainly from a girl. His mother would be unhappy if he was late. She would also be unhappy if he ignored a cry for help. She had a mantra, repeated often enough to be part of Javier’s psyche:

      

       A person is defined by the actions they take and by the actions they choose not to take

      

       He made a sharp left down a dirt path. His shoulder bag containing his hoops gear swung in a wide arc around his body. He made his way through some thick bushes toward the sound.

      

* * *

      

JOE MALONE HEARD THE BANG from inside his guard house. It was barely a shed, plopped down at the southwest corner of Washington Square Park. Joe, working for New York University that Friday evening, was moonlighting from his regular gig as a security guard at the Citi Bank on Church Street. He had put in his twenty years at the NYPD and was supposed to be enjoying his retirement while working the cushy bank assignment he had lined up years earlier. Divorcing his wife had left him with an account balance requiring supplemental income. If he were still on the force, he would have had enough seniority to pick his shift and assignment. Retiring had been his worst decision. Well, maybe not as bad as leaving his wife for a woman who dumped him six months later. Now, he had to make another decision.

       He knew that sound. A gunshot has a specific aural texture and echoes off the surrounding buildings, even when it comes through the trees. Most New Yorkers would ignore it, even if they knew what it was. That’s the nature of city life. Don’t get involved. Cops think differently; and deep down, Joe was still a cop.

       The inside of the park, however, was not his jurisdiction. The university wanted him in his little shack on the sidewalk, to make the students feel safe as they strolled up and down the cobbled sidewalks between the bars and clubs and restaurants. If there was a fight or a purse-snatching on the street, he was expected to emerge from his shelter and take action. The wrought-iron barrier separating the park from the sidewalk was his boundary. Joe was supposed to leave the dark shadows under the city-owned trees to the NYPD. If something was happening inside the park, university security was supposed to call 9-1-1. Those were his orders.

       Joe was lousy at following orders. He slid off his chair and stretched his back as he wandered out of the shed and tipped his head up, listening in case there was another shot. He could hear a truck speeding up Sixth Avenue a block away, and the buzzing chatter of happy and drunk college students. The ambient noise drowned out any sounds coming from the park. The lights on the street gave way to shadows on the far side of the fence. Nothing. No second shot.

       He dialed the local police precinct and spoke to the desk sergeant. “This is Joe Malone, NYU Security at 4^th and MacDougal. I have a probable gunshot inside Washington Square Park, likely to my north. Please send a unit over to check it out . . . Yes, I know the difference between weapons fire and a car backfiring. I’m retired NYPD. Just send a car.”

       He punched END and again tilted his head, listening. Nothing. The precinct dispatcher would eventually put out a call for a squad car, but it would take a few minutes, at least.

       “Fuck it.” Joe walked through the gap in the fence, pulling out his two-foot-long tactical flashlight that also served as a Billy club. He walked along a smooth, paved path, still listening. The street sounds were muffled here, behind layers of shrubs and trees. The pool of brightness from his flashlight filled in the shadows. He left the pavement, following a dirt path toward what he knew was a clearing around the Hangman’s Elm. Joe had no clue how the tree got its name, but assumed criminals were actually hanged there in olden times. It was a spot where people gathered in the daylight for picnics and where New Yorkers who preferred not to be seen came to score some weed—or more—after dark.

       Joe wasn’t interested in busting a small-time drug dealer or their customers, but he figured the shot he heard had come from this direction. The clearing was as good a place to start as any. Another bang caught his attention. It was farther away, toward the east: different, but likely another gunshot. He swung his light around to confirm there was no potentially hostile person in the clearing. Emerging through a gap in a line of thick forsythia bushes where the path narrowed, Joe shone his light at the Hangman’s Elm.

       He saw a flash of purple and a dark shape on the ground. He walked toward it, shining the light all around the silent dirt, trampled by hundreds of New York feet. When he was close enough to be sure of what he was seeing, he rushed forward. It was a girl. On the ground. Not moving. He knelt in the dust, not worrying about what evidence he might be trampling. Sticking the flashlight under an arm, he reached out and nudged her, in case she was just sleeping. She wasn’t. He rolled her onto her back. His eyes jumped to the dark hole in her forehead. She wasn’t going to need an ambulance.

What readers are saying:

“With intelligent characters and believable dialogue, Chapman has managed to create a riveting whodunit that also speaks volumes about social issues plaguing the justice system. . . . The social issues are skillfully woven into the narrative, making readers seriously consider these problems even when they’re immersed in conversations with possible snitches and the chaos of climactic shooting scenes.”

~Kirkus Reviews

"Haunting, chilling, and heroic . . . a must-read novel."

~Chanticleer Book Review (5-star "Best Book") 

“Chapman once again knocks it out of the park.” “The author did a superb job of developing all the essential players.”

~Feathered Quill Book Reviews

“Chapman's attention to building a fast-paced story filled with satisfyingly unpredictable twists and turns creates a memorable, compelling saga. . . . 

Worthy of a top recommendation.”

~Midwest Book Review

“The Other Murder will grip you from the start and keep you reading through all the twists and turns until the surprising end.”

~ReadorRot.com

“Magnificent.” “An excellent story, it is a must read for mystery-suspense/thriller lovers!”

~InD’Tale Magazine

“The story is a mystery that kept me involved as the different pieces of the whole story came to light. But there is also a side story that sent my thoughts off on tangents, pondering the press, what we can and should expect from them. Chapman’s story ought to get us all thinking.”

~Big Al, Big Al’s Books & Pals (5-stars)

“The writing is gorgeous, the narrative is filled with realism and mystery, and the action moves in unexpected directions.”

~The Book Commentary (5-stars)

“Absolutely chilling. It's a gripping and harrowing storyline! A great story to follow and try to figure out what will happen next. This is one of those books that grabs you from the start and pulls you in.”

~Amy’s Bookshelf Reviews (5-stars)

“A captivating story with a thought-provoking premise.”

~Bookpleasures.com

“Fans of a ‘whodunit?’ mystery will love trying to piece together this mystery. . . . With its suspense, mystery, and twists, this book is a must-read.”

~ Georgia Lyonhyde for Reedsy Discovery

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Book Links:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CJN6W5NJ

Audiobook: https://www.amazon.com/Audible-The-Other-Murder/dp/B0CP2ZR5RD

B&N: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-other-murder-kevin-g-chapman/1144340885?ean=9781958339190

BookShop.org: https://bookshop.org/p/books/the-other-murder-kevin-g-chapman/20851494

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/books/the-other-murder-by-kevin-g-chapman

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/180169378-the-other-murder

Book Trailer:

https://youtu.be/SYQE--3PLrA

About the Author

Kevin G. Chapman is an attorney specializing in labor and employment law. In 2021, Kevin finished the first five books in the Mike Stoneman Thriller series: Righteous Assassin (CLUE Award finalist), Deadly Enterprise (Kindle Book Award semi-finalist), Lethal Voyage, (Winner of the 2021 Kindle Book Award, CLUE finalist, RONE finalist), Fatal Infraction (Best Police Procedural of the year – CLUE Award), and Perilous Gambit. In late 2022, Kevin published a stand-alone mystery/thriller titled Dead Winner (CLUE Award - Best Suspense/Thriller of the year). Kevin is a resident of Central New Jersey and is a graduate of Columbia College and Boston University School of Law. Readers can contact Kevin via his website at www.KevinGChapman.com.

Website * Facebook * Twitter * Instagram * Bookbub * Amazon * Goodreads

Author Links

Website: https://kevingchapman.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/703027696777079

Twitter: https://twitter.com/kgchapman

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kevingchapman

Bookbub: https://www.bookbub.com/authors/kevin-g-chapman

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Kevin-G-Chapman/e/B00J1GJZNM

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5194743.Kevin_G_Chapman

Giveaway

$30 Amazon

Follow the tour HERE for special content and a giveaway!

https://bit.ly/TheOtherMurderTour