The Kind Worth Killing
Peter Swanson, 2015
HarperCollins
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780062450319
Summary
A devious tale of psychological suspense involving sex, deception, and an accidental encounter that leads to murder that is a modern reimagining of Patricia Highsmith’s classic Strangers on a Train.
On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted Severson meets the stunning and mysterious Lily Kintner. Sharing one too many martinis, the strangers begin to play a game of truth, revealing very intimate details about themselves.
Ted talks about his marriage that’s going stale and his wife Miranda, who he’s sure is cheating on him. Ted and his wife were a mismatch from the start—he the rich businessman, she the artistic free spirit—a contrast that once inflamed their passion, but has now become a cliché.
But their game turns a little darker when Ted jokes that he could kill Miranda for what she’s done. Lily, without missing a beat, says calmly, "I’d like to help." After all, some people are the kind worth killing, like a lying, stinking, cheating spouse.
Back in Boston, Ted and Lily’s twisted bond grows stronger as they begin to plot Miranda's demise. But there are a few things about Lily’s past that she hasn’t shared with Ted, namely her experience in the art and craft of murder, a journey that began in her very precocious youth.
Suddenly these co-conspirators are embroiled in a chilling game of cat-and-mouse, one they both cannot survive...with a shrewd and very determined detective on their tail. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—January 11, 1964
• Where—Carlisle, Massachusetts, USA
• Education—B.A., Trinity College; M.A., University of Massachusetts-Amherst; M.F.A., Emerson College
• Currently—lives in Somerville, Massachusetts
Peter Swanson is the author of several novels: The Girl with a Clock for a Heart (2014) The Kind Worth Killing (2015), Her Every Fear (2016), and Before She Knew Him (2019). Eight Perfect Murders (2020) is his most recent.
Swanson's poems, stories and reviews have appeared in such journals as The Atlantic, Asimov’s Science Fiction, Epoch, Measure, Notre Dame Review, Soundings East, and The Vocabula Review. He has won awards in poetry from The Lyric and Yankee Magazine, and is currently completing a sonnet sequence on all 53 of Alfred Hitchcock’s films.
Swanson has degrees in creative writing, education, and literature from Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and Emerson College. He lives with his wife and cat in Somerville, Massachusetts. (From the publisher and the author's website.)
Book Reviews
A fun read, full of switchbacks and double crosses… With classic misdirection, Swanson distracts us from the details - changing up murderers and victims fast enough to keep us reading. And, implausibly, rooting for the cold-blooded killer at this thriller’s core.
Boston Globe
This devilishly clever noir thriller [has] head-spinning surprises that make it an intoxicating read.... The book will inevitably earn comparisons to Gone Girl.... This one makes good on the promise, right down to the chilling final paragraph.
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
The next Gone Girl?.... There aren’t just two unreliable narrators, there are four. There isn’t just one enormous, game-changing twist. Try three.... You’ll also lose count of all the sociopaths...they’re each deranged but oh-so-compelling.
Entertainment Weekly
Revenge has rarely been served colder than in Swanson’s exceptional thriller.... With scalpel-sharp prose, Swanson probes the nature of cold-blooded evil. Few will be prepared for the crushing climax.
Publishers Weekly
Ted Severson is flying from London to Boston when he gets into an intense tête-à-tête with striking but enigmatic Lily Kintner, finally blurting out that he could just kill his wife. When Lily coolly replies that she'd like to help, a murder plot is born.
Library Journal
Suspenseful twists and turns, expert pacing and a breathless race to a surprise ending.... [A] captivating, powerful thriller about sex, deception, secrets, revenge, the strange things we get ourselves wrapped up in, and the magnetic pull of the past.
Shelf Awareness
[M]eets and exceeds the high-water mark that its predecessor established.... The floor underneath the novel doesn’t just shift, it turns upside down. This top-notch thriller has enough twists and surprises for three books.
Bookreporter.com
A twisty tale of warring sociopaths [and] a good companion to similar stories by Laura Lippman and Gillian Flynn.
Booklist
While there are twists, most of them are so clearly telegraphed that only the most careless of readers won't see what's coming, especially since Swanson needlessly doubles back over the same events from different points of view.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:
• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips)
• Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction
• Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)
(We'll add specific questions if and when they're made available by the publisher. In the meantime, use our generic mystery questions.)
GENERIC DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
Mystery / Crime / Suspense Thrillers
1. Talk about the characters, both good and bad. Describe their personalities and motivations. Are they fully developed and emotionally complex? Or are they more one-dimensional heroes and villains?
2. What do you know...and when do you know it? At what point in the book do you, the reader, begin to piece together what happened?
3. Good crime writers are skillful at hiding clues in plain sight. How well does the author hide the clues in this work?
4. Does the author use red-herrings—false clues—to purposely lead readers astray?
5. Talk about plot's twists & turns—those surprising developments that throw everything you think you've figured out into disarray. Do they enhance the story, add complexity, and build suspense? Are they plausible? Or do the twists & turns feel forced and preposterous—inserted only to extend the story.
6. Does the author ratchet up the story's suspense? Did you find yourself anxious—quickly turning pages to learn what happened? How does the author build suspense?
7. What about the ending—is it satisfying? Is it probable or believable? Does it grow out of clues previously laid out by the author (see Question 2). Or does the ending come out of the blue? Does it feel forced...tacked-on...or a cop-out? Or perhaps it's too predictable. Can you envision a better, or different, ending?
8. Are there certain passages in the book—ideas, descriptions, or dialogue—that you found interesting or revealing...or that somehow struck you? What lines, if any, made you stop and think?
9. Overall, does the book satisfy? Does it live up to the standards of a good crime story or suspense thriller? Why or why not?
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