On the (Audio) Bookshelf // The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson

Happy Monday! I hope you all had a wonderful weekend!

My weekend started with my niece’s first band concert and it was amazing! It was so much fun to watch her play the flute (she used the first flute that I had) and I enjoyed listening to the other bands who played. I loved it so much that I pulled out my flute on Saturday and played through a Christmas music book. I was a little rusty, but not as rusty as I was the last time I played it. I should pull it out more often.

Speaking of things I listened to (how’s that for a terrible transition?), I finished an audiobook last week that I absolutely loved… although it was a slow book to fall in love with.

THE KIND WORTH KILLING by Peter Swanson is about a man named Ted Severson who meets Lily Kintner in an airport bar and tells her that his wife is cheating on him. He comments that he “could kill her” and Lily helps him devise a plan to kill his wife and her lover. Told in alternating points of view, we find out more about the mysterious Lily and follow their plan to kill Ted’s wife.

It took me about a week to get through the first two hours of this book. While I really liked the set-up (and thought there were some memorable quotes at the start!) part of the narrative was a little slow and I had a hard time getting into the story. I found it to be too crass at the start and it felt a little awkward to listen to it at times.

Truthfully, I don’t think murder is necessarily as bad as people make it out to be. Everyone dies. What difference does it make if a few bad apples get pushed along a little sooner than God intended? And your wife, for example, seems like the kind worth killing.”

But I’m glad that I listened to it. These things would have bothered me if I had been reading it too and it would have been easier for me to put the book down and forget about it. When I’m struggling with an audiobook it feels like less of a commitment to stick with it because I listen to it on my commute when I wouldn’t be doing much anyway. So I stuck with it and I’m so glad that I did!

A couple hours in I was hooked on the story. There were a lot of twists along the way. None of them were jaw-dropping, but they all kept me on my toes and I enjoyed wondering what was going to happen next. This book kept me guessing until the end and I always appreciate that in a novel. The ending was fantastic–it was my idea of the perfect ending and it made me smile as the book came to an end.

I’ve also read THE GIRL WITH A CLOCK FOR A HEART and this is my favorite of the two.

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HAVE YOU READ EITHER OF PETER SWANSON’S BOOKS? WHAT WERE YOUR THOUGHTS?