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Friday 4 August 2017

Audiobook Review: THE KIND WORTH KILLING by Peter Swanson


Author: Peter Swanson
Read: July 2017
My Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟1/2



Book Description (Audible):

'Hello there.' I looked at the pale, freckled hand on the back of the empty bar seat next to me in the business class lounge of Heathrow Airport, then up into the stranger's face. 'Do I know you?'

Delayed in London, Ted Severson meets a woman at the airport bar. Over cocktails they tell each other rather more than they should, and a dark plan is hatched - but is either of them being serious? Could they actually go through with it? And if they did, what would be their chances of getting away with it?

My musings:

Having really loved Swanson’s novel Her Every Fear, it was a no-brainer that I simply had to read The Kind Worth Killing, especially after reading all the raving reviews about it. As I am always looking for captivating books for my daily commute in the car, I downloaded this novel from Audible, and I am so glad I did! The Kind Worth Killing was a fantastic read, the sort that made me sit in my car in the driveway on a cold, chilly night for “just a few more minutes” because I couldn’t tear myself away. I can’t remember much about my driving on those days, except that I got there safe and sound, but my mind was fully captivated by the book. Now there is a psychological thriller that lives up to its name!

Swanson offers us two female leads so chilling and malicious that listening to them sent shivers down my spine at times, and yet Lily intrigued me to a point where I silently feared for her safety and secretly hoped she would get away with murder (literally). She was both terrifying and sympathetic, which is a very hard thing to achieve in a protagonist, and I applaud the author for pulling this off so perfectly. It helped that Lily always had a perfectly reasonable explanation – at times challenging my own moral conventions. Is killing justified if the victim is a truly horrible individual with no chance of redemption, set to make a lot of lives miserable? Lily thinks so. In the airport bar, she says to Ted:

"Truthfully, I don't think murder is necessarily as bad as people make it out to be. Everyone dies. What difference does it make if a few bad apples get pushed along a little sooner than God intended? And your wife, for example, seems like the kind worth killing."

Sounds reasonable to you? No, no! *slaps face* - murder is BAD! I would love to delve deeper into the characters and discuss the storyline, but this is not the place and I would hate to give any spoilers. My advice is: plunge into this book blindly and let Swanson take you on his journey. The writing is excellent. The subject matter is chilling. It will mess with your mind – believe me! And the ending – I was worried at one point about how the author would pull this off, but it was perfect!

As for the narration: I loved that the publisher used four different narrators for the different characters, which made the story easy to follow and a pleasure to listen to. 
  

Summary:


The Kind Worth Killing was one of my favourite reads this year so far – one of those rare psychological thrillers that really mess with your mind and make you itch to find someone to discuss it with. I loved it, and am so glad I stumbled across it. If you love a good psychological thriller and are looking for something different, do yourself a favour and pick up this book today. You won’t be disappointed.


You may also like:

Her Every Fear




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