Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

Eight Perfect Murders

by Peter Swanson

From the hugely talented author of Before She Knew Him comes a chilling tale of psychological suspense and an homage to the thriller genre tailor-made for fans: the story of a bookseller who finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation because a very clever killer has started using his list of fiction’s most ingenious murders.

Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre’s most unsolvable murders, those that are almost impossible to crack—which he titled “Eight Perfect Murders”—chosen from among the best of the best including Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin’s Death Trap, A. A. Milne's Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox's Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain's Double Indemnity, John D. Macdonald's The Drowner, and Donna Tartt's A Secret History.

But no one is more surprised than Mal, now the owner of the Old Devils Bookstore in Boston, when an FBI agent comes knocking on his door one snowy day in February. She’s looking for information about a series of unsolved murders that look eerily similar to the killings on Mal’s old list. And the FBI agent isn’t the only one interested in this bookseller who spends almost every night at home reading. The killer is out there, watching his every move—a diabolical threat who knows way too much about Mal’s personal history, especially the secrets he’s never told anyone, even his recently deceased wife.

To protect himself, Mal begins looking into possible suspects . . . and sees a killer in everyone around him. But Mal doesn’t count on the investigation leaving a trail of death in its wake. Suddenly, a series of shocking twists leaves more victims dead—and the noose around Mal’s neck grows so tight he might never escape.

Reviewed by readingwithwrin on

3 of 5 stars

Share
Eight Perfect Murders follows Malcolm who is a bookseller who wrote a blog post years ago with the title Eight Perfect Murders. Now several years later someone is using that blog post as a way to find ways to murder people and it just might be someone who actually knows Malcolm in real life. While the thought of this is not only chilling it also makes for a good plotline as it has you guessing the entire time of who it is and why they've decided to do this.

Overall I did enjoy this book. I was able to read it in a day which hardly ever happens anymore. I haven't read to many books that follow actual booksellers or revolve around books so this was a new experience for me. I did like it but I did find some parts of this book hard to believe and I just wasn't able to get past them this time. The part I did like, however, was how Malcolm found ways to figure everything out and how he pieced things together. He had an excellent memory when it came to things like this somehow and wasn't afraid to go and investigate things on his own even though he was being watched by a killer and the authorities because he was a suspect. That does lead to another thing I found rather strange is how the authorities came to him for help and how they were having him do so much of the work. It just seemed a little strange to me and especially made me uneasy at times because of how Malcolm was going about investigating on his own. His investigating did lead to some very interesting times and helped piece the story together and connected all the murders. I was figuring out things right along with Malcolm and I was extremely surprised by who the killer was.

See reviews first on my blog

Last modified on

Reading updates

  • Started reading
  • 27 March, 2020: Finished reading
  • 27 March, 2020: Reviewed