Eight Perfect Murders to Get Your Mind Off Our Troubles

If the name Patricia Highsmith gives you the creeps, if Agatha Christie brings out your inner sleuth, if Nero makes you think of Rex Stout, then Peter Swanson has a delicious mystery read for you. "Eight Perfect Murders" is the title of an

old blog post written by bookseller Malcolm Kershaw as a sales pitch for his favorite, impossible to solve murder mysteries. 

Now the FBI is at the door of The Old Devils, Mal's Boston bookstore, asking questions about him and that long ago essay. According to agent Gwen Mulvey, a series of unexplained murders seems to follow a pattern, one that led her to Mal's old blog post and a bad feeling about this supposed expert in crime fiction. Appealing to his vanity, Gwen entices Mal to help her with the investigation by reading over the crime scene documents and matching them to the various novels that made his perfect list. 

 

As Mal heads home and settles in for an evening of deep reading on the cases, we, the reader, are privy to his every thought. By the end of chapter four we know that Mal is actually familiar with one of the victims and that he feels it's likely that the perpetrator of the crimes may actually know him. His final statement before nodding off on the couch is,

 "I had to begin to protect myself." 

Hmmmm. From here on in you'd do well to take everything Mal says with a grain of salt. But wait, he's a book lover who's sharing all his passion and expertise with us. He can't be the bad guy, can he? What about the quiet, unassuming part time employee at the Old Devils, Emily Barsamian? No one knew much about her. And then there's co-owner and fading author Brian Murray who rarely comes around, spending most of his time on a stool at the bar at the Beacon Hill Hotel. Before long Mal is leading us deep into the dark web where one can barter for most any service and soon no one is who they appear to be. 

Now, I have to tell you, Swanson's book is a light, fun read with an eye to distracting oneself from the apocalyptic news cycle but it is in no way a thriller. Any self-respecting mystery reader will guess a good bit of the plot long before the advertised "final stunning conclusion." One of my pet peeves is authors who feel compelled to write over the top, outrageously exaggerated blurbs for the friends novels. They do the author a disservice actually. The reader can't help but be disappointed when the novel doesn't meet expectations. 

So let's just say, if you love the smell of bookstores, enjoy cat and mouse crime fiction, or have a thing for New England in the wintertime, then by all means pick up a copy of Swanson's latest. As I said, it's clever, it's fun, and you'll get a great reading list of true mystery masterpieces.