The Kind Worth Killing - Peter Swanson

Reviewer’s note:

With classic misdirection, the writer distracts us from the details — changing up murderers and victims fast enough to keep us reading. And, implausibly, rooting for the cold-blooded killer at this thriller’s core. This is one of the most spine-chilling reads, full of switchbacks and double-crosses that I have come across. Gripping, and stylishly written, it is extremely hard to put down. The characters were thoroughly entertaining, particularly Lily, who fast became my favorite – she was cool, calm, and cunning; it appears I have a liking for characters who have the ability to meticulously plot murder! The chapters alternate between the characters, and I enjoyed every character’s narrative. With scalpel-sharp prose, the author delves into the nature of cold-blooded evil. Only a few can be prepared for the crushing climax.

Book Review:

Delayed in London, Ted Severson meets a woman at the airport bar. Over cocktails, they tell each other a bit more than they should, and a dark plan is hatched – but could they go through with it and, if they did, what would be their chances of getting away? Back in Boston, Ted’s wife Miranda is busy site managing the construction of a beautiful house on the Maine coastline. But what secrets is she carrying, and to what lengths might she go to protect the vision she has of her deserved future?

The main protagonists in the novel are Ted, Lily, Miranda, Brad, and Detective Kimball. Ted is devastated at his wife’s infidelity and is in denial but, is easily persuaded by Lily to go through with his idea of killing his wife. Lily is a complex character, who has a dark history and sees murder in a very different light from any of the others. Miranda is Ted’s wife – a cold, selfish character who manipulates people for her gain.

Swanson shades Lilly’s seemingly bucolic childhood, growing up under two bohemian parents in rural Connecticut, with creepy subsurface details, such as the disused swimming pool in her backyard. As the novel advances, Ted and Lilly grow closer, but they continue to hide secrets from each other. The plot alternates between the environs of Boston, and a seaside town in Maine, where Ted’s wife Miranda is also sleeping with her contractor, an aging boy named Brad. Swanson dexterously handles the back-and-forth between both worlds, between past and present, and between the two points of view. The novel boasts not one, but two sociopaths. Although one of them is very well drawn, and we understand her motivations, the second seems gratuitous.

As the planning for the murder progresses, the novel moves forward seamlessly, and the reader begins to wonder how the author will weave the multiple plot strands together. Several other points of view are added, and as new narrators emerge, the plot thickens and shifts so often that the reader is left off-kilter. The ending, too, is a tour-de-force of plotting, re-opening a situation that appears to be resolved. The result is that the book lives on in the reader’s mind past its ending.

Happy Reading.