This book was like a flame to me. A thriller book about someone recreating 'perfect' murders from literary crime fiction? Fantastic! I was a little nervous it wouldn't live up to my expectations but thankfully my fears were for nothing. Eight Perfect Murders is the story of Malcolm, a crime bookshop owner who has been living a relatively unassuming life. One day an FBI agent shows up on his doorstep because they believe someone has been recreating a list of 'perfect' fictional murders he wrote about for a blog once. As he gets involved in investigating, he starts to wonder if someone is targeting him specifically.
I loved this book. It does spoil the plots of quite a few famous mystery books (the ones in the blurb on Goodreads plus The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie) so be warned but for any crime/murder mystery fan, this was a beautifully-done homage. One thing I really liked is it addressed the possibility for an unreliable narrator fairly early on, which was such a relief. I thought just from reading the blurb that Malcolm being behind the murders might be used as a last-minute twist but instead, it gets introduced as a possibility near the start and then is neither confirmed nor denied until the end. This might sound a bit odd but it is done in a brilliant way and it stopped me being impatient, allowing me to properly get invested into the story.
The characters are pretty good as well on the whole. Swanson does seem to struggle a bit with having characters act like real people, and one or two do suffer from that in this book. However, it is nowhere near as prominent as in some of his other works. The main character was interesting and keeping things from the reader was actually incorporated into his personality which I liked. The eventual ending and solution to everything is satisfying and done pretty well.
On the whole, this is a brilliant thriller and has quickly become one of my favourites. It takes a fantastic premise and manages to deliver on it with a gripping story full of fun tidbits for crime fans. I definitely recommend!
Overall Rating:
.5
No comments:
Post a Comment