On his way back home traveling from the UK, Ted Severson, a businessman, and investor has a chance meeting with a lady by the name- Lily Kintner while the flight is delayed at Heathrow Airport. What starts with small talk leads to conversations getting personal and under the influence of a couple of Martinis, Ted talks about his wife Miranda's infidelity. Lily then gets into a game of truth and Ted confesses how he sometimes wishes that he could kill Miranda. To Ted's surprise, Lily not just takes it seriously, but offers to help him execute the plan in a full-proof way! When a thriller opens with such a premise, it is sure to keep you glued. And it keeps up to its promise and as a reader, you want to know what is going to happen to Ted and Miranda.
The novel is written in alternative narrations from the perspectives of 4 characters- Ted, Lily, Miranda, and towards the end Kimball, the investigating officer. The author knows very well how to grab the reader's attention well. He wastes no time in setting the premise and has the reader invested in the book by intriguing him enough in the first 2 chapters. Then the narration slowly delves into the pasts of the central characters - Ted, Miranda and Lily. The characters are built and we are told what kind of childhood and adolescence Ted and Lily had. Though you may think it has nothing to do with what is happening with them in the present ongoings of the plot, you are in for a surprise as you connect the dots slowly when the big reveals happen.
What works for the book and the plot is it keeps on surprising. The reader is always kept guessing and there are some twists in the plot that you may not see coming, which are totally opposite to where you thought the story was going. This is what we expect from a thriller, don't we? It also deep-dives into the mind of the serial killer in the story, which becomes important to the reading experience as the reader needs to understand the killer's point of view, what transforms the character into a killer and what keeps it going. Full marks to Peter Swanson on doing justice to that.
One of the biggest put off for me while reading a thriller/ mystery is when the identity of the killer is revealed very early. This is one such novel where you know who is the killer halfway into the book. Despite that, the twists that are thrown at you will still leave you zapped. Even though you know the identity of the killer, it still keeps you gripped- however I just wonder how it would be from the reader's perspective, had the author tried to give it a different treatment and revealed the killer towards the end, or much later into the book.
I saw that the ending of this book is often criticized on the internet. However, I disagree. The author has taken the creative liberty to keep the ending open and up to the user's creativity and imagination on how to interpret it! I appreciate such writing styles where the authors don't spoon-feed the readers and leave something for the readers to chew.
All in all, this book is a great package, and if you love psychological thrillers and murder mysteries, this book will not disappoint you! Looking forward to reading more from Peter Swanson.
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