Skip to content

A Talent for Murder

A Talent for Murder

Psychological ThrillerThriller
Pages
272
Published
2024
Language
English

Synopsis

Martha Ratliff thought she had a comfortable, ordinary marriage — until small inconsistencies in her frequently traveling husband's stories begin to add up to a terrifying suspicion: that the mild-mannered man she married might be a killer. Too frightened to go to the police with only a hunch, Martha turns to an old college acquaintance, the quietly formidable Lily Kintner, to help her learn the truth. The third Henry Kimball / Lily Kintner novel pairs slow-building domestic dread with Peter Swanson's trademark reversals, as Lily is drawn back into a world where curiosity about murder is never entirely safe.

Prose complexity
4/10

Vibe

DarkTenseMysteriousCreepy
Unreliable NarratorSecret Identity

Genres

Psychological Thriller Thriller Domestic Thriller Mystery

About the author

P
Peter Swanson

Peter Swanson (born 26 May 1968) is an American author of psychological suspense and crime fiction. He was born in Concord, Massachusetts and grew up in nearby Carlisle, apart from two years spent in England as a child. He studied at Trinity College in Connecticut, the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Emerson College, and worked as a bookseller before publishing his first novel, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart, in 2014. His second, The Kind Worth Killing (2015), won the New England Soci...

Characters

Martha RatliffProtagonist

A librarian who grows suspicious that her husband may be involved in a string of murders.

Lily KintnerProtagonist

An old acquaintance Martha turns to for help investigating Alan.

Alan PeraltaSupporting

Martha's husband, whose frequent travel and inconsistent stories raise her suspicion.

Henry KimballSupporting

Former investigator who joins Lily once the case turns deadly.

All characters in A Talent for Murder