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

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!!! ☺️

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.

Twisty

Loved this book! What a let down since I just finished it. I love a book with twist and turns.

Absolutely Intriguing

It had the best twist and kept me guessing until the very end! Can’t wait to listen to another story. Narration was superb.

Easy to follow with a twist

I liked that the story moved at a pace as to not get bored.

Great daily deal purchase!

I bought this book for $1.99. I enjoyed it more than most books I use credits to purchase. There were a few twists. Give it a listen.

Easy read,

First the bad: the robotic voice and narration of Lily’s character. For such an important role it sounded like AI read it and subtracted personality from her. That was a downer for an audio version.
Story was quite interesting, easy to connect to the two previous books and the anticipation of having detective Kimball make his appearance was satisfied in due time.
I find the twists to be actual twists, my mind went in some many directions and I got a few things right but I was surprised by others.
Swanson’s writing is fluid and I love how at times the text naturally rhymes just like Kimball’s limericks.
Overall a solid story.
Hopefully Kimball will be more complex and developed for the next installment.

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.

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.

Different endings than expected

It’s a good story and it’s different. The ending wasn’t what I thought which was awesome.