Peter Swanson’s Eight Perfect Murders is a fantastic mystery/psychological thriller, but be warned: if you aren’t a hardcore mystery buff you may find a slew of classic mysteries spoiled for you.
Malcolm Kershaw is the owner of a bookstore specializing in mysteries. One night he receives a call from an FBI agent about a series of murders that may be connected to a blog post Malcolm wrote in the past called “Eight Perfect Murders.” In the blog post Malcolm listed eight books that feature what he considers perfect murders. The FBI agent suspects that someone is going through the list and replicating the murders. Soon Malcolm finds himself helping the agent track down the murderer.
Eight Perfect Murderers is too good to spoil, so the less said the better. Although Swanson doesn’t give the reader the same courtesy. There are frequent references and call-backs to well-known mysteries, with whole solutions sometimes given away (see my review of one of the books listed, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, for one such experience). But the plots and solutions to the eight books are critical to the story, adding layers to the book’s plot that wouldn’t otherwise come through. So while I was spoiled for a few of the books, I didn’t begrudge Swanson the revelations.
This is such an enjoyable and compulsively readable book. It is also, at the end when the murders are solved, a surprisingly sad book. It may be an odd thing to say, but I don’t often find psychological thrillers sad, murders notwithstanding. I guess I equate thrillers with popcorn movies in that they are sort of mindlessly entertaining. Which is not to say I don’t love such thrillers or movies! I do. But I rarely expect to genuinely feel something. I might be a weirdo for being sad at the end of this book, but there it is.
I thought this would be my first review for 2023, but when I casually glanced at the first chapter, I got so hooked it became book 53 for 2022. Here’s to an upcoming year of new books. May they all be as good as this one!
