I enjoy Peter Swanson’s books for several reasons. They always feature daring and unexpected twists. They’re usually (if not always) set in New England. Swanson likes to reference classic crime fiction. (The homicides in Eight Perfect Murders are even based on famous literary cases.) The author’s style is simple and straightforward, which neatly belies his villains’ nefarious deeds.
If a Swanson book includes the dynamic duo of Lily Kintner and Henry Kimball (The Kind Worth Killing and The Kind Worth Saving), well, my reading day is complete.
A Talent for Murder met all my Swanson expectations and possibly more.The story begins with Martha, a librarian who lives in Portsmouth, N.H. After she finds a bloodstain on her husband, Alan’s, shirt, she wonders if he might be a serial killer. It’s not such a far-fetched idea; he’s a traveling salesman, and dead bodies keep turning up in the locales he’s visited.
Martha seeks help from her old college friend, Lily Kintner. Lily, a rather frail-appearing redhead, is smart, unflappable and resourceful. She’s also willing to commit murder if necessary. Martha doesn’t know this, needless to say—she just wants somebody to figure out what, if anything, her husband is up to.
The book takes a dramatic, hairpin turn about halfway through. Lily enlists the help of Henry, a teacher turned private investigator. They practice their arts of deception until Lily comes face to face with the murderer—while she’s walking back home from buying a bag of granola.
And that’s about all I can say about the plot. To reveal more details just wouldn’t be fair.
I raced through A Talent for Murder in four days, which included the Fourth of July. Is it wrong to enjoy a book about a nasty serial killer so much? If it is, then I don’t want to be right.
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