A serial killer, a reality TV dating show … It’s a ridiculous idea but in Fiona Sussman’s hands, it’s enthralling, writes Steve Braunias, and one of the best novels of 2025.
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Hooked Up – murderously clever execution
A serial killer, a reality TV dating show … It’s a ridiculous idea but in Fiona Sussman’s hands, it’s enthralling, writes Steve Braunias, and one of the best novels of 2025
4th September 2025There should be no chance of Fiona Sussman’s new crime novel Hooked Up surviving its own quite ridiculous premise – there is a serial killer on the loose in Auckland, and the police investigation depends on watching an entire series of a TV dating programme — but she does so many things right, brings you closer and closer to the page until you cannot let go, that she gets away with a kind of murder. It’s a very strange literary feat. Her ideas are terrible but her story telling is world-class, and it qualifies Hooked Up as one of the best novels of any kind in 2025.