The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson is the first book in his Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner series. It opens with Ted, a young, well-off and recently married man from Boston who has recently discovered that his wife may be cheating on him with the contractor building their new house. On a plane ride back from London, Ted meets Lily and starts up a conversation during which he mentions being angry enough to potentially kill his wife. Intrigued, Lily continues the conversation by urging Ted to actually consider the idea, more specifically to consider how he might kill his wife. Having an odd moral compass, Lily has no problem with the idea of killing someone but only if they truly deserve it. With Lily’s support Ted starts formulating a plan to potentially kill his wife and he and Lily flesh it out over several subsequent meetings. Before they have the chance to go through with it Ted is killed in a home invasion and now Lily needs to determine who knows what and who killed him as she is starting to suspect things were not what they seemed in regards to Ted’s wife or the contractor.
This is an odd book in that it is told from the perspectives of several different people, almost all of whom were perfectly willing to kill someone. I don’t agree with what they were planning to do but at the same time they were so well written and depicted that you find yourself wanting to empathize with them. The characters were remarkably human and had their own foibles and flaws just as much as the rest of us, even if their morals were rather different. Lily in particular really drew you right in as she was relatively easy to connect with, mostly because of the background information that was provided in her chapters. In terms of the story, I was rather surprised just how circuitous the plot was as it started out about one thing and then transitioned into something different and then transitioned again into something else. Overall, the story and the transitions made sense and it was a very cohesive whole but at the same time it was surprising because where you ended up at the end was nowhere near where you expected at the beginning. I did enjoy the story though as it was actually a pretty interesting story but like I said it was not necessarily what I was expecting. Something else that was interesting was the shifting viewpoints as well as each section had two narrators, one of which changed as the plot progressed. The only one that stayed the same was Lily so we really got to know her by the end of the story and the others only somewhat. Considering the topics present in the book it was not as serious as I was expecting though it was still on the serious side. It ended up being a pretty good book about a woman killer who was surprisingly easy to empathize with so I am giving it four out of five stars.
This is a good example of a thriller and one that would probably appeal to readers who tend to prefer that genre. I would say that you should probably be careful before just diving right into this novel considering the content. The intended age range is adult readers and I am definitely agreeing with that for this book. It graphically describes several deaths over the course of the story so younger readers should really be careful. At best I would suggest no one younger than about sixteen should read this. That being said it was good so if it sounds interesting consider trying it. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments if you do.