Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

 

Recently I read Peter Swanson's book Nine Lives and I thought it was terrific.  This led me to request another of his mysteries, Eight Perfect Murders.

When I started reading this one I felt it had too many similarites to the book Nine Lives.  It's defintely a different mystery, not a rehash, but some of the elements made me think about the previous book.

We start with a bookshop owner named Malcolm and a vivid description of the harsh winter snow storm.  A FBI agent calls Malcolm and asks to speak to him, arriving in the storm as he is about to close up the shop.  

She wants to chat with him about a blog post he'd made years ago called Eight Perfect Murders.  Seems someone is taking that list to heart with bodies turning up murdered exactly as the blog post outlined. Is it a serial killer?  Is it Malcolm?

The plot had possibilities but I found it fairly boring.  Not giving up on this author as Nine Lives was very good, IMO.  If you've read any of Swanson's books which would you suggest? If you've read Nine Lives, did you think about some of the similarities between the plot and ending?

Nine Lives by Peter Swanson

"If you're on the list someone wants you dead."

The beginning of the book starts with a cast of characters and a small biographical introduction.

 For instance: 

Matthew Beaumont - a suburban father stressed by the complexities of family life in Dartford, Massachusettes.

Ethan Dart - a singer songwriter in Austin, Texas.

Caroline Geddes - an English professor at University of Michigan, lives in Ann Arbor with two cats.

Each person receives a letter without a return address and a simple list of nine names, their name included.  The individuals seem to have nothing in common.  They mostly live in different geographical parts of the country from Massachusetts, California, Michigan, Texas, Maine, Connecticut and New York City.  They don't know one another.

One of the characters is Jessica Winslow.  She is a FBI agent and her name is also on this list. Obviously the FBI does a search to see if the names are connected in any way from arrests, previous cases or relationships.  There isn't a connection yet one by one the people on this list are killed.  Some have police protection yet the killer finds a way.  The final few chapters reveal the slim thread of connections and I certainly had not figured it all out.  That's always fun if you're a frequent reader of mysteries and the ending is a surprise.

I would defintely read more by this author.