I LOVE crime fiction, so this could have been the perfect book for me. There are references to some of my favourite authors (though—via the characters—a smidge of disdain toward more contemporary novels). In fact I was even intrigued as to whether Mal’s business partner’s (an author) character was a female version of one of my fave gumshoes, Spenser (written by Robert B Parker). The novels were translated onto the small screen ( Spenser for Hire) in the mid 1980s and recently (though with little reverence to Parker’s work) via Spenser Confidential by Netflix. No,' I said, but that wasn't entirely true. It did remind me of something, but I couldn't remember exactly what it was. 'I don't think so,' I added. As the book progresses go, his retelling of the present begins to take on a tinge of fear as he begins to put pieces together and realises just what is going on — and who is killing people he knows, and more importantly why.

Kershaw’s blog post was titled Eight Perfect Murders – cases where the murderer is not and almost certainly cannot be caught. The eight stories in his list will mostly be familiar to crime readers and film buffs: The Red House Mystery by AA Milne, Malice Aforethought by Anthony Berkeley Cox, The ABC Murders by Agatha Christie, Double Indemnity by James M Cain, Strangers on a Train by Patricia Highsmith, The Drowner by John D MacDonald, the play Deathtrap by Ira Levin and The Secret History by Donna Tartt. What’s fun is trying to determine which of these familiar plots (with the aid of the synopses Swanson provides) the events of the novel best parallel. And let’s not forget James M. Cain’s “Double Indemnity” (if you haven’t watch its movie, do it immediately to see Fred MacMurray’s brilliant performance!), A.A Milne’s “Red House Mystery”, John D. Macdonald’s “Drowner” and Anthony Berkeley Cox’ s “Malice Afterthought” (I have to make confession that I didn’t read the last three of them. But I already add to my MOUNT TBR that I rent hourly for bungee jumping activities!)Swanson maintains the story’s unflagging momentum throughout, and by the time you reach the end, you realise yet another classic mystery is in play. I will let Kershaw himself tell you which it is.

I’m not gonna talk more about the story because it’s so hard to write more about without giving spoilers and I’m not the most trustworthy person who likes to write the murderers’ identities in the middle of each Christie books and send them to my loved ones (You may guess I’m not the most lovable person!) Wow! What do I even say about a book that has rendered me speechless? This book is a thriller lovers dream come true. First of all, Peter Swanson won me over with The Kind Worth Killing and has never let me down since. I find him and Liz Nugent to be the masters of the dark, twisted thrillers. I often wonder how they come up with this stuff! Can you imagine their computer search history? The stuff that murders are made of!!! What did I learn from making this list? That perfect murders, at least the artful kind we find in books, are all about concealment and misdirection. They have a lot in common with well-executed magic: it’s all about fooling the detectives (and the readers), making us look away from where the crime is happening. Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders, another book on Malcolm’s list, is a textbook example: it appears as though a psychopath is bumping off victims according to the initials of their names, but the truth is something else altogether. Poirot, naturally, is not misled, and the world can be set to rights.

The list has also caught the attention of the FBI, bringing them straight to Malcolm's door- which is where our story begins... And as we continue to read about the facts Malcolm also the narrator of the story presents us, we realize he keeps secrets to himself and slowly when we get inside of his mind and learn more about his traumatized love story with his ex-wife who died in the car accident, we pity on him but also start to get suspicious about him. Why a killer is obsessed with his article? Could Malcolm get involved with one of the murders? Did FBI agent tell him the truth? Could the killer also be a vigilante who brings the justice by punishing very notorious people because as far as we realize the victims are not angels, they have their own crimes and dirty secrets!

mal is decent at both, so he assists in the investigation, looking into several recent killings for connections either to the methods of murder or the philosophy of the murder ers in the eight novels, sharing some, but not all, of what he discovers with gwen, for reasons. he will feel less conflicted about sharing with the reader the whos and hows and occasionally the whys of the murders in all eight books on his list. if you've already read these books, it's fun to see them adapted into slightly different murdershapes for swanson's purposes. if you haven't, well, it'll either be glass half empty and he spoils those books for you or glass half full and he saves you the trouble of reading them. The deaths lead FBI Agent Gwen Mulvey to mystery bookshop Old Devils. Owner Malcolm Kershaw had once posted online an article titled ‘My Eight Favourite Murders,’ and there seems to be a deadly link between the deaths and his list – which includes Agatha Christie’s The ABC Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train and Donna Tartt’s The Secret History. This is a book for those who love mysteries and appreciate the nuances of the genre . Mal discusses what makes mysteries so riveting to read. He details some classics, and in discussing the perfect murder plots, reminds readers of why some mysteries are so powerful. When the reveal occurred, I was a little underwhelmed, but then I soon realized I got caught up in the wrong element of this book--yes, the mystery of who is committing the murders is intriguing, but what is even more intriguing is the narrator himself. This isn’t about the who or the why. It is about the power of the narrator.The Red House Mystery by A.A. (Alan Alexander) Milne (a writer of very substantial brain on Gutenberg The deaths lead FBI Agent Gwen Mulvey to mystery bookshop Old Devils. Owner Malcolm Kershaw had once posted online an article titled 'My Eight Favourite Murders,' and there seems to be a deadly link between the deaths and his list - which includes Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders, Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train and Donna Tartt's The Secret History.