It’s a Mystery: “Every murderer is probably somebody’s old friend. You cannot mix up sentiment and reason.”
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Eight Perfect Murders
By Peter Swanson
William Morrow, 2020
Hercule Poirot, Agatha Christie’s renowned Belgian detective, once said, “I can admire the perfect murder – I can also admire a tiger….” He also said, “I have a bourgeois attitude to murder, I disapprove of it. It’s a double whammy premise that sets up Peter Swanson’s delicious thriller. It begins when the narrator, Malcolm “Mal” Kershaw, once an employee at Boston’s Old Devils Bookstore, and now the owner, finds himself at the center of an FBI investigation. It’s all because a very cunning serial killer is using a venerable blog of Mal’s – mystery fiction’s eight most inventive murders – as his own diabolical playbook.
Mal learns of all this from FBI agent Gwen Mulvey. She confronts him on a snowy day in February when he’s alone in the store, except for his cat Nero. She questions him about three unsolved murders that are eerily similar to the killings on Mal’s old blog. What does he think about the possible connections among them? The question thrusts Mal on the horns of a dilemma. He’s hiding a secret that would tie him more closely to the list than she can surmise. It’s something he’s kept hidden and never told anyone, not even his beloved late wife, Claire. Five years ago, Claire was the victim of a car accident whose origins haunt Mal as much as her death. Later, at home beer in hand, as he begins to examine Mulvey’s list, he contemplates the agent.
I wondered what had attracted her to the FBI. She came across as someone more suited to academia, an English professor maybe, or a researcher. She reminded me a little of Emily Barsamian, my extremely bookish employee, who couldn’t look me in the eye when we talked. Agent Mulvey wasn’t quite that awkward, just young and inexperienced, maybe. It was impossible for me not to think of Clarice Starling from The Silence of the Lambs…. And Mulvey, like her fictional counterpart, seemed too tame for the job. It was hard to imagine her whipping a gun from a holster or aggressively questioning a suspect.
She did question a suspect. She questioned you.
Just as unsettling, it quickly becomes apparent that there is a killer out there watching his every move. He’s an insidious threat who knows way too much about Mal’s personal history: “Whoever is doing this isn’t just using my list. The killer knows me. Maybe not a lot, but a little.”
So Mal begins his own search for the killer. He finds no shortage of suspects and eventually winds up exchanging emails with the apparent perpetrator. An exchange worthy of Christie, complete with large hints that our narrator, a la The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, is more than a little guilty of a lot.
The tension escalates and the noose tightens around Mal’s neck as his investigation leaves a trail of death in its wake. A series of shocking twists culminates in a masterful ending. You won’t get there on your own—trust me, don’t even try. Just relish the opportunity to reacquaint yourself or discover the classic books, which range from A.A. Milne’s The Red House Mystery (1922) through Donna Tartt’s The Secret History (1992), including along the way, inevitably, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train (1950).
Whether you are a well-read mystery maven and classic whodunit fan, or a rank beginner, don’t miss Eight Perfect Murders. Swanson hits every high note in this homage to the old fashioned crime novel. Oh and that nifty climax will leave you breathless!
—Irma Heldman is a veteran publishing executive and book reviewer with a penchant for mysteries. One of her favorite gigs was her magazine column “On the Docket” under the pseudonym O. L. Bailey.