Book Review: A Talent for Murder by Peter Swanson (Henry Kimball/Lily Kintner #3)

 

Rating:⭐⭐⭐⭐

Book: 3.5⭐

Audio Narration: 4.5⭐

When librarian Martha Ratliff, begins to suspect her husband Alan Peralta, a traveling salesman by profession to whom she has been married for a little over a year, of being a serial killer, she reaches out to Lily Kintner, an old friend from graduate school, for help. When they were students, Lily had once helped Martha get out of a difficult situation. Lily, despite having lost touch with Martha after graduation, agrees to help her. The narrative follows Lily and Martha as they dig deeper into Alan’s life. When their “investigation“ takes a dark turn, Lily turns to P.I. Henry Kimball for assistance.

The Kind Worth Killing remains my favorite Peter Swanson novel to date, and I thoroughly enjoyed following Lily Kintner and Henry Kimball in The Kind Worth Saving. Needless to say, I was eager to read the author’s latest offering.

The narrative is presented from the perspectives of Martha, Lily and the killer. The premise is intriguing and the author deftly weaves all past and present threads of the story into a cohesive narrative. I loved the first half of the novel - a strong start and a dark and suspenseful vibe kept me immersed in the story until the midway mark . I was surprised by the twist (which is always a plus point). Lily is a fascinating character – shrewd, twisted and as devious as ever, but I would have liked it if Kimball had a larger role to play. There aren’t any major twists or reveals in the second half of the novel, which suffers from repetitiveness and uneven pacing with more telling than showing. However, the chilling finale more than makes up for the slow second half and I’ll say this much, Lily does not disappoint!

In my opinion, this installment would have made for a more intense read had it been condensed into a novella. Overall, I did enjoy this novel, just not as much as the previous installments in the series. I do look forward to reading more from Peter Swanson in the future.

I paired my reading with the audiobook, which definitely enhanced my overall experience with the novel. The incredible full-cast narration featuring Sophie Amoss, Stephen Graybill, Saskia Maarleveld, Graham Halstead, Kathleen Early and Keith Szarabajka made for an entertaining immersion reading experience.

I don’t think this book would work as a standalone and would recommend reading the previous installments in series order before this one.