Fjords Reviews

April 15, 2020

Fiction
EIGHT PERFECT MURDERS
BY PETER SWANSON

WILLIAM MORROW
288 pages
0062838202

Peter Swanson’s Eight Perfect Murders is a smart, fast-paced narrative that pays tribute to mystery novels and whodunits while offering its own version of one. A book about murders based on books narrated by a bookseller and featuring an author, a bookstore, and names like James M. Cain, Agatha Christie, John D. MacDonald, Patricia Highsmith, and Ira Levin might feel slightly too meta for some, but Swanson deftly pulls readers into an immersive, somewhat oppressive, cold world packed with wild turns, unexpected revelations, and a lot of secrets and keeps them there, eagerly turning pages to see what’s next.

Malcolm Kershaw co-owns Old Devils Bookstore, a well-known indie bookstore in Boston that focuses on mysteries. Years ago he wrote a blog post for the store’s site compiling his favorite unsolvable murders. The list included novels like Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders, John D. Macdonald's The Drowner, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, and James M. Cain's Double Indemnity. He expected the list to go viral and get him opportunities elsewhere, but that didn’t happen and he soon forgot about it. Now he’s forced to think about the list again because an FBI agent comes to him looking for information about a series of unsolved murders that seem to be based on the killings in the novels on Mal’s list. While he isn’t guilty of murdering anyone on the list, Mal has some secrets of his own, and having the FBI asking him questions makes him nervous, so he decides to cooperate and starts helping them without saying too much. What follows is a story about the impossibility of keeping secrets forever and a study on why human nature is the main element that makes a perfect murder impossible.

Swanson is clever storyteller. He had fun writing Eight Perfect Murders and it shows. The narrative plays with a plethora of tropes but does so mostly be pointing them out in other books or deconstructing them within the story. Mal knows whodunits and his narration forces the reader to look at the story their reading from different angles. Also, he plays with readers and lets them know that they are not getting everything they think they are from Mal:

“The thing is, and maybe I’m biased by all those years I’ve spent in fictional realms built on deceit, I don’t trust narrators any more than I trust the actual people in my life. We never get the whole truth, not from anybody. When we first meet someone, before words are ever spoken, there are already lies and half-truths. The clothes we wear cover the truth of our bodies, but they also present who we want to be in the world. They are fabrications, figuratively and literally.”

Eight Perfect Murders is an enjoyable read about a series of murders and some dark, painful secrets, but what makes it special is the way in which Swanson made his book a celebration of all books. The Old Devils Bookstore is reminiscent of indie bookstores across the country and some of the characters, which include the author who co-owns the store and a few readers who regularly buy books from Mal, will be familiar to those who read, write, review, and buy crime fiction regularly or have ever been to a reading at a bookstore. Similarly, Swanson infused the novel with his love for literature. Mal becomes a vehicle for celebrating books and what they mean to us:

“I brought The Drowner into bed with me. I read the first paragraph, its words hauntingly familiar. Books are time travel. True readers all know this. But books don’t just take you back to time in which they were written; they can take you back to different versions of yourself.”

While there is plenty of murder in its pages, Eight Perfect Murders constantly moves around and shifts tone in a way that pushes it back and forth across the length of the crime fiction spectrum. For example, sometimes we get the cold Boston streets and quiet evenings at home, which make it feel like a modern cozy mystery. However, then it moves and we enter a world of murder, drugs, guns, and cheating spouses that moves at the speed of a pulpy noir novella. The constant shifting is entertaining, but the best thing about the narrative is Swanson’s ability to lead readers in one direction and then forcing them to realize they’ve been given either part of the truth or a complete lie. This becomes obvious in the end, where Mal’s comments about narrators come full circle and he warns readers against trusting him too much: “Like I’ve said, there have been many nights in the past few years when I don’t know what is real and what is a dream.”

Eight Perfect Murders is a quick, immersive read that is both a unique, smart mystery novel and a love letter to the genre. Fans of Peter Swanson will be delighted, and those unfamiliar with his work now have a perfect place to start.