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Influencers Who Kill: A True Crime Collection: Real Stories of Online Fame and Fatal Consequences
384 pages, Paperback
Published February 3, 2026
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
January 21, 2026
This is a quick, true crime collection of stories.
None of the influencers were people I’ve heard of.
If you enjoy true crime and don’t mind less publicized stories, you might like this one.
Thank you NetGalley for the audiobook.
None of the influencers were people I’ve heard of.
If you enjoy true crime and don’t mind less publicized stories, you might like this one.
Thank you NetGalley for the audiobook.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
Thank you to Netgalley for an early copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
I came into this with high hopes and I'm sorry to say that this missed the mark.
If you're a fan of true-crime podcasts as told from the likes of Eleanor Neale vs. JCS, I can definitely see this book being up your alley. 'Influencers who Kill' presents several, quite niche [said as someone who has quite an encyclopedia of lesser known crime knowledge] in bite-sized chunks. While calling half the people here 'influencers' is a bit of a stretch given most of them barely scrape over a few hundred followers, it was a fairly interesting look into parasocial relationships and the influence of a following.
The pacing of this made it an easy background listen and it was easy to pick up and put back down without losing your place. I agree with other reviewers that this felt like an amalgamation of articles, but I don't say that to the detriment of the book.
As I mentioned I'm a quite big fan of true crime, so I expected to really enjoy this. But unfortunately the tone and pacing that I'm sure would make other readers really eat this up, is exactly where I struggled. One 'influencer' is described as putting up a 'tizzy' shortly before their crime spree, the narrator affects accents and silly voices depending on the dialogue she's reading. This in combination with, in my opinion, more effort being made to humanise the criminal than the victim in several places bordered on offensive in parts.
While I appreciate this book needs to be entertaining, but I felt entertainment value here came at the cost of the victims.
I came into this with high hopes and I'm sorry to say that this missed the mark.
If you're a fan of true-crime podcasts as told from the likes of Eleanor Neale vs. JCS, I can definitely see this book being up your alley. 'Influencers who Kill' presents several, quite niche [said as someone who has quite an encyclopedia of lesser known crime knowledge] in bite-sized chunks. While calling half the people here 'influencers' is a bit of a stretch given most of them barely scrape over a few hundred followers, it was a fairly interesting look into parasocial relationships and the influence of a following.
The pacing of this made it an easy background listen and it was easy to pick up and put back down without losing your place. I agree with other reviewers that this felt like an amalgamation of articles, but I don't say that to the detriment of the book.
As I mentioned I'm a quite big fan of true crime, so I expected to really enjoy this. But unfortunately the tone and pacing that I'm sure would make other readers really eat this up, is exactly where I struggled. One 'influencer' is described as putting up a 'tizzy' shortly before their crime spree, the narrator affects accents and silly voices depending on the dialogue she's reading. This in combination with, in my opinion, more effort being made to humanise the criminal than the victim in several places bordered on offensive in parts.
While I appreciate this book needs to be entertaining, but I felt entertainment value here came at the cost of the victims.
January 29, 2026
I received this from Netgalley as an ALC. All views are my own.
This was not my favorite. These cases mostly were very old, which I'm assuming comes from all the research that was done before this was compiled. It felt very heavily researched which could be good but listening wise was very boring. It left me googling people to get pictures and updates so from that perspective I guess it was good for getting me interested. It listened like a "Snapped" documentary, the audio was very monotone without emotion. There are several additional cases that could have been featured and been more interesting to me, but this being more of an international coverage they picked some from all over. It felt more like they wanted to get the details correct over being engaging or interesting. Interesting but a pass for me personally. I think it could have been way more interesting.
This was not my favorite. These cases mostly were very old, which I'm assuming comes from all the research that was done before this was compiled. It felt very heavily researched which could be good but listening wise was very boring. It left me googling people to get pictures and updates so from that perspective I guess it was good for getting me interested. It listened like a "Snapped" documentary, the audio was very monotone without emotion. There are several additional cases that could have been featured and been more interesting to me, but this being more of an international coverage they picked some from all over. It felt more like they wanted to get the details correct over being engaging or interesting. Interesting but a pass for me personally. I think it could have been way more interesting.
Review of advance copy received from Netgalley
this book was .. an interesting premise but definitely let me down.
I felt as though the author could not decide if they wanted to make personal remarks on these tragedies or if they wanted to just state the facts.
there were so many comments / additional items written here that seem like, the author speculating (i.e. assuming what people were talking about, assuming motive that was never clearly stated). I think this book could've been better if each case was presented factually and also separately, like a separate chapter title / section for each case bc they did blend together too much.
additionally, I think it wouldve been helpful to include any information from the court cases - and also, some cases focused on the preliminary information of the town/community where it could've focused more on the families.
I felt as though the author could not decide if they wanted to make personal remarks on these tragedies or if they wanted to just state the facts.
there were so many comments / additional items written here that seem like, the author speculating (i.e. assuming what people were talking about, assuming motive that was never clearly stated). I think this book could've been better if each case was presented factually and also separately, like a separate chapter title / section for each case bc they did blend together too much.
additionally, I think it wouldve been helpful to include any information from the court cases - and also, some cases focused on the preliminary information of the town/community where it could've focused more on the families.
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January 26, 2026a case study in true crime and how influencers and the modern culture of social media effects people - the book shed light on a couple of cases I had already heard of and introduced me to others I hadn't - I loved the premise but do feel like the term influencer was stretched a little with a couple of the cases - either way the author clearly did a lot of research and put a lot of effort into making sure to present the cases and tell their stories in a sensitive, impartial way that still satisfied my desire to understand the events
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews