The Kind Worth Killing
Author: Peter Swanson
Publisher: HarperCollins
Date of Publication: February 2, 2015
Pages: 416
I enjoyed Peter Swanson's first effort, The Girl with A Clock for a Heart so much that I purchased his second book and devoured it as well. I was thrilled that The Kind Worth Killing is even better! The author uses a multiple viewpoint format for a super twist on the story line of Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train.
The narrative starts slowly and innocently enough with a conversation between two strangers which starts in an airport lounge in London and continues on a trans-Atlantic flight to Boston. Ted Severson's tongue becomes a little loose after a few martinis and he tells Lilly Kitner about his wife's affair with a contractor building their summer home in Maine. Talk turns to murder and Lilly almost jokingly agrees to help with the deed. This strange association continues in the weeks after with clandestine meetings between the pair.
The story line moves from flashbacks to Ted and his wife Miranda's courtship and marriage and Lilly's college romances and their subsequent tragic endings to the present day infidelity, subterfuge and murderous intent. There are also chapters told from Miranda's viewpoint which really turn this story on its head. What separates this novel from the cliche of a plot to murder an unfaithful spouse are the twists and turns in the plot which are masterful. The story caroms at high speed and with truly unanticipated shocking turns, creating an arabesque plot which is as entertaining as it is
truly surprising.
I found the writing to be excellent. The characters are all terribly flawed but extremely well developed. The most captivating character is, not surprisingly, Lilly, who utters this memorable line:
"Truthfully, I don't think murder is necessarily as bad as people make it out to be. Everyone dies. What difference does it make if a few bad apples get pushed along a little sooner than God intended? And your wife, for example, seems like the kind worth killing."
The structure of the of the book is similar to the successful technique used in The Girl with a Clock for a Heart. Instead of being formulaic, however, the author uses and refines the technique (flashbacks/multiple viewpoints) and creates an even better novel than his first. Both are exceptional in my view and I recommend both highly. Hopefully, the inevitable movie versions of these two stories live up to the quality of the novels.
The narrative starts slowly and innocently enough with a conversation between two strangers which starts in an airport lounge in London and continues on a trans-Atlantic flight to Boston. Ted Severson's tongue becomes a little loose after a few martinis and he tells Lilly Kitner about his wife's affair with a contractor building their summer home in Maine. Talk turns to murder and Lilly almost jokingly agrees to help with the deed. This strange association continues in the weeks after with clandestine meetings between the pair.
The story line moves from flashbacks to Ted and his wife Miranda's courtship and marriage and Lilly's college romances and their subsequent tragic endings to the present day infidelity, subterfuge and murderous intent. There are also chapters told from Miranda's viewpoint which really turn this story on its head. What separates this novel from the cliche of a plot to murder an unfaithful spouse are the twists and turns in the plot which are masterful. The story caroms at high speed and with truly unanticipated shocking turns, creating an arabesque plot which is as entertaining as it is
truly surprising.
I found the writing to be excellent. The characters are all terribly flawed but extremely well developed. The most captivating character is, not surprisingly, Lilly, who utters this memorable line:
"Truthfully, I don't think murder is necessarily as bad as people make it out to be. Everyone dies. What difference does it make if a few bad apples get pushed along a little sooner than God intended? And your wife, for example, seems like the kind worth killing."
The structure of the of the book is similar to the successful technique used in The Girl with a Clock for a Heart. Instead of being formulaic, however, the author uses and refines the technique (flashbacks/multiple viewpoints) and creates an even better novel than his first. Both are exceptional in my view and I recommend both highly. Hopefully, the inevitable movie versions of these two stories live up to the quality of the novels.
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