A Talent for Murder

A Novel

By: Peter Swanson

Narrated by: Sophie Amoss, Stephen Graybill, Saskia Maarleveld, Graham Halstead, Kathleen Early, Keith Szarabajka

Length: 8 hrs and 24 mins

Publisher's summary

A newlywed librarian begins to suspect the man she married might be a murderer—in this spectacularly twisty and deviously clever novel by Peter Swanson, New York Times bestselling author of The Kind Worth Killing and Eight Perfect Murders.

Martha Ratliff conceded long ago that she’d likely spend her life alone. She was fine with it, happy with her solo existence, stimulated by her work as a librarian in Maine. But then she met Alan, a charming and sweet-natured salesman whose job took him on the road for half the year. When he asked her to marry him, she said yes, even though he still felt a little bit like a stranger.

A year in and the marriage was good, except for that strange blood streak on the back of one of his shirts he’d worn to a conference in Denver. Her curiosity turning to suspicion, Martha investigates the cities Alan visited over the past year and uncovers a disturbing pattern—five unsolved cases of murdered women.

Is she married to a serial killer? Or could it merely be a coincidence? Unsure what to think, Martha contacts an old friend from graduate school for advice. Lily Kintner once helped Martha out of a jam with an abusive boyfriend and may have some insight. Intrigued, Lily offers to meet Alan to find out what kind of man he really is . . .but what Lily uncovers is more perplexing and wicked than they ever could have expected.

©2024 Peter Swanson (P)2024 HarperCollins Publishers

Love love LOVE this book!!

It was nice catching up with an "old friend" Lily! She is a brilliantly written complex character who is stand-offish but relatable. This book is good to read as a stand-alone but I highly recommend reading the the first two Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner books. Peter Swanson always knocks it out of the park for me!

Better and Better

How is it possible each book in the series is better than the last!! Love this series!!

Love the series

I enjoyed the book. I certainly do not agree with those who called it the best of the series. First book was phenomenal. Second book, very good. This one is enjoyable, especially when you know the characters. It did lack some of the mystery of the first two, but still good and I to listened and enjoyed every minute.

Questionable Narration

I had read “The Kind Worth Killing”, which was excellent. This one wasn’t as good, and the narration was annoying. Has Kathleen Early always sounded so robotic and I just never noticed? I had to speed up her narration and then reduce it back to the default for the other ones. Josie, Martha, and Ethan’s narrators were good. The Henry narrator was awful - almost as bad as Ted’s was in the first book. The plot here was okay, and I really do like Lily - and stories of revenge when the bad guy(s) get theirs in the end. I might have enjoyed it more with different readers.

Performance Issues

One of the readers had a very strange vocal performance or editing that made this difficult to listen to, recommend to listen at a faster speed.

Another excellent read!

This is another excellent book by Peter Swanson! His characters are written devilishly clever without being campy. I hope he will write more books featuring Lily Kitner. I will be first in line to read them (or listen, as the case may be). I definitely recommend this book.

Slightly predictable ..

I really liked this book, was able to see it coming but wonderfully written and planned out! I love multiple narration and each character was well written too. Will look for more by this author. This was my first and I will listen to it again within a year or two!!! ☺️

Better than Part II

I think it's possible to top The Kind Worth Killing, but this one is definitely better than The Kind Worth Saving. I hadn't realized this would be a Lily Kintner novel, so I was pleasantly surprised, but also skeptical because I did not enjoy the second installment near as much as the first. This one brought me back in and gave me hope for the Lily Kintner / Henry Kimball series. It still wasn't as good as The Kind Worth Killing, but in all fairness, that one set the bar so high that I don't know if it's possible to even reach it again. However, this one was good enough that I would definitely read future installments, should Swanson decide to keep Lily and Henry's saga going. Very enjoyable.

Uneven narration

Decent story but not all the narrators voices flowed smoothly. One in particular had a very stilted quality that I had to put at 1.5x speed. I don’t know if she was directed to perform this way for her character but it made her parts more difficult to get through. I enjoyed the story though, a good beach read.

I’ve always loved his books, but not this one!

I disliked everything- the characters, the story - I kept reading it because I thought it would get better but it never did.