Review: A Map to Murder (The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco #3) by Michelle Chouinard

A Map to Murder (The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco #3) by Michelle Chouinard

Blurb from Goodreads:

Beloved true crime tour guide Capri Sanzio returns in Michelle Chouinard’s A Map to Murder, the next book in the USA Today bestselling Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco Mysteries.

True crime tour guide and serial killer aficionado Capri Sanzio knows how central the Summer of Love is to San Francisco’s identity—even if she’s always had conflicted feelings about it. She’s used to weaving feel-good hippie culture and music into her Haight-Ashbury true crime tales, centering her tours around what happens when a revolution looking to lift up the best ideals humanity has to offer clashes with the darkest souls hidden among humanity’s shadows. But what she’s not used to is a guest stepping out from those shadows to drop a murder investigation directly into her lap.

A woman has gone missing in San Francisco after trying to solve her aunt’s murder: a cold case from the Summer of Love. Capri sees herself in the missing woman—both were unable to find the answers they desperately wanted as kids—and sees her own daughter in the tour guest begging for her help. Unable to turn the case away, Capri finds herself following a trail of flower-power footprints turned deadly—straight to a killer who has her in their sights.

 I really enjoyed the first book in the series but there has been a bit of a drop off for books 2 and 3.  While the mystery has been good, because it's missing the personal connection from the first book, the characters are starting to seem a bit one dimensional.  And I have to admit, I just don't love Capri as a MC. I probably would not read as a standalone but I will still continue this series hoping for a bit more magic of the first book.  Give these a try if you like cozies!

A Map to Murder comes out next week on September 22, 2026 and you can purchase HERE.  

After dropping Haley off, I texted Petito I was on my way home. He was done for the night, too, and I barely had time to uncork a bottle of zinfandel when my security camera registered him pulling up into the short-but-sweet San Franciscan driveway that fronts my garage door. I greeted him with a freshly poured glass of wine, and he thanked me with a long, lingering kiss. On a different day I'd've allowed myself to sink into that kiss harder than a woolly mammoth into a La Brea tar pit, but Haley and Claudelle's faces loomed over me, pulling me back to the surface of reality.