Kill Dick - by Luke Goebel (Hardcover)

About the Book

"At nineteen, Susie Vogelman should be coasting: she's an NYU dropout with no responsibilities, endless prescription pills, and a Brentwood estate to waste away in. But Los Angeles has other plans. A string of brutal murders targeting addicts spreads through the city, and Susie's ivory tower begins to crumble. The headlines point too close to home: her father's ties to an opioid empire, a sinister secret society, and her own complicity in the systems holding it all together. Then there's Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor running a rehab scam so audacious it's almost admirable. When their lives collide, Susie and Peter are dragged into a web of privilege, corruption, and violence, where every escape leads deeper into the rot. Dark, satirical, and razor-sharp, Kill Dick is a modern literary thriller that unflinchingly dissects wealth, exploitation, and the perilous line between survival and self-destruction"-- Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

#25 in Independent Press Top 40 Bestsellers!

Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by LIT HUB and PLAYBOY, and featured in the NEW YORK POST'S "31 Page-Turning New Thrillers to Read."

Co-Writer of the films CAUSEWAY and EILEEN

Recipient of the prestigious Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize and Joan Scott Memorial Fiction Award

"Marked by deliberate instability, the ambitious satirical novel Kill Dick skewers contemporary literary seriousness even as it participates in it."--Foreword

"A wild plan to disrupt a big Hollywood awards show, a scheme to assassinate a medical business mogul who has made money off pain and addiction, and the ever-widening gap between the ultra wealthy and the destitute."--Molly Lambert, Los Angeles Times

Reviews

A fever dream, Kill Dick is a literary thriller that plunges into the chaos of Los Angeles, where addiction, privilege, and corruption combust.

At nineteen, Susie Vogelman should be coasting: she's an NYU dropout with no responsibilities, endless prescription pills, and a Brentwood estate to waste away in. But Los Angeles has other plans. A string of brutal murders targeting addicts spreads through the city, and Susie's ivory tower begins to crumble. The headlines point too close to home: her father's ties to an opioid empire, a sinister secret society, and her own complicity in the systems holding it all together.

Then there's Peter Holiday, a disgraced professor running a rehab scam so audacious it's almost admirable. When their lives collide, Susie and Peter are dragged into a web of privilege, corruption, and violence, where every escape leads deeper into the rot.

Dark, satirical, and razor-sharp, Kill Dick is a modern literary thriller that unflinchingly dissects wealth, exploitation, and the perilous line between survival and self-destruction.

Review Quotes

A wild plan to disrupt a big Hollywood awards show, a scheme to assassinate a medical business mogul who has made money off pain and addiction, and the ever-widening gap between the ultra wealthy and the destitute."
--Molly Lambert, Los Angeles Times

"Has sparked debate about the limits of free expression"
--Ben Kaplan, San Francisco Today

"The mystery of the murders is weaved around cultural criticism of America today: commercialism, voyeurism, sexual confusion, ideological conflict."
--The Oregonian

"After experiencing firsthand the devastation of opioids, Luke Goebel says he wrote his new novel as a form of 'direct action against the major dicks that kill us all.'"
--VICE

"A novel written in the style of Vice magazine."
--Emily Watlington

"A teenage addict and an ex-professor running a rehab scam find common ground in Luke Goebel's dark and satirical literary thriller"
--Crime Fiction Lover

"When her path crosses that of a grifter professor, her turn toward darkness accelerates in this satirical thriller, reminiscent of The Shards, about chaos, youth, and addiction."
--ALTA

"Luke B. Goebel's winking satirical novel Kill Dick parodies contemporary literary and cultural forms. . . . A piquing parody, the book reveals how easily critique becomes performance and how violence, addiction, and privilege transform into aesthetic currency. Its most vivid moments evince cutting wit. Marked by deliberate instability, the ambitious satirical novel Kill Dick skewers contemporary literary seriousness even as it participates in it."

--Foreword Reviews

"Paints a darkly surreal Lynch- and Kubrick-inspired portrait of LA . . . Oozing with style"
--Kirkus Reviews

"From Brentwood to Thai Town, West Adams to Skid Row, Luke Goebel's irresistible Kill Dick draws a deranged--and yet curiously, charmingly relaxed--map of Los Angeles, coming off like a sun-dappled, shaggy cousin of The Shards. Like Eve Babitz before him, he seems to love and understand the city as few do, but Goebel's eye, his sly, meta-fictive wit, and--above all --his language is entirely his own."
--Matthew Spektor, author of Always Crashing in the Same Car

"Goebel delivers."
--Publisher's Weekly

"Caustic, combative and tender, Kill Dick is the kind of book that makes you want to write. . . . Luke Goebel has woven an insane portrait of Los Angeles in the vein of Bret Easton Ellis and Joan Didion. It's a car chase of a novel, where you never want to look away."
--Playboy's Most Anticipated Books of 2026

"'Kill Dick' is a love letter to LA's darkness and light"
--USA Today

"If this book were any better, I'd cut my own head off."
--Ottessa Moshfegh, author of My Year of Rest and Relaxation

"Finally, a book brave enough to say what we've all been thinking: Dick has got to go."
--Lukas Gage, author of I Wrote This For Attention

"For lovers of Bret Easton Ellis, Luke Goebel's KILL DICK renders a pop-infused and murderous portrait of an iconic Los Angeles on fire complete with pools, pills, ennui, murders, and a cacophony of brands. But this novel has a timely pulse, and Goebel--with his gorgeous sentences and imagistic prowess--pulls off one of the hardest tricks of all: making morality fun."
--Melissa Broder, author of Death Valley

"Stunning . . . Part noir thriller, part searing social commentary, Kill Dick follows a young artist-turned-addict through the dark, unforgiving, and stratified streets of Los Angeles, as she confronts her father's complicity in the opioid epidemic. In bleak, beautiful prose, Luke Goebel weaves together a narrative that exposes the savage heart of privilege and power, raising questions about truth, memory, and the nature of storytelling itself. With haunting descriptions of a city literally and metaphorically aflame, Kill Dick captures the burning zeitgeist of our time."
--Kimberly King Parsons, author of We Were the Universe

"Luke Goebel's delirious debut novel festers in the sun-sick, dissociative Southern California of Joan Didion and Bret Easton Ellis. In Kill Dick, Los Angeles is hell, and Susie Vogelman is its most reluctant angel: vacant, brilliant, heartbreaking."
--Anna Dorn, author of The Really Dead Wives of New Jersey

"Luke Goebel's Kill Dick is a hypnotic descent into wealth, chaos, and the deranged art of self-destruction. It's like if Joan Didion and Hunter S. Thompson had a love child raised on Oxy and existential dread--impossible to look away from. The prose moves like stolen cash, the world is decadent and rotting at the edges. Honestly, if you're not reading this book, what are you doing? Probably something dull and unpaid. Consider this your invitation to the party--just don't expect to leave unscathed."
--Anna Delvey

"One of the last few geniuses we have left in this life."
--Scott McClanahan, author of Crapalachia

"There's an American dreamscape left. There's a reason to go on."
--Lidia Yuknavitch, author of the now major motion picture Chronology of Water

"Kill Dick is a fever dream. Luke Goebel perfectly captures the consciousness of a certain kind of woman--raw, lonely, desperate, and cinematic. Full of grief and longing, it's got some of the most unforgettable sentences I've ever read. This book makes me want to write a crime novel, move to LA, or maybe just become a killer. Goebel is something else.
--Harriet Armstrong, author of To Rest Our Minds and Bodies (UK author under 25)

"Goebel's sharp dialogue, razor plotting and fiery sense of Los Angeles elevate his unconventional characters....a gritty, highly entertaining novel."
--Oline Cogdill, South Florida Sun-Sentinel

About the Author

Luke Goebel is an acclaimed author and screenwriter celebrated for his unflinching honesty and innovative storytelling. A recipient of the prestigious Ronald Sukenick Innovative Fiction Prize and the Joan Scott Memorial Fiction Award, his debut novel, Fourteen Stories, None of Them Are Yours, garnered critical acclaim for its innovative and precisely lyrical, profoundly resonant exploration of love, grief, and the restless search for identity. Goebel also co-wrote Eileen, starring Anne Hathaway and McKenzie Thompson, and Causeway, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Brian Tyree Henry (who received an Oscar nomination for his performance). He is known as well as his role as co-editor at The New York Tyrant and work with Tyrant Books. He lives in Portland, OR with his wife, fellow author Ottessa Moshfegh.