{"id":5975,"date":"2016-10-03T13:29:01","date_gmt":"2016-10-03T13:29:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/?p=5975"},"modified":"2016-10-03T14:09:35","modified_gmt":"2016-10-03T14:09:35","slug":"the-kind-worth-killing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.crimeculture.com\/?p=5975","title":{"rendered":"The Kind Worth Killing"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Swanson,\u00a0<\/strong>The Kind Worth Killing<\/em>\u00a0(Feb 2015)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Review by Lee Horsley<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>In Peter Swanson\u2019s\u00a0The Kind Worth Killing<\/a>,\u00a0<\/em>murderous plans\u00a0are initiated in the relaxed, detached atmosphere of an airport lounge: \u201cthe rules are different in airport bars\u201d, and it seems much easier to let go of normal conversational inhibitions \u201cin that peculiar bubble known as air travel.\u201d Ted and Lily get to talking in the\u00a0business lounge at London\u2019s Heathrow\u00a0as they await\u00a0a delayed night flight to Boston. When Ted jokingly confesses that he sometimes feels like killing his cheating wife, Lily says\u00a0\u201cI think you should.\u201d Ted expects some indication that she is joking, but Lily appears to be entirely serious, and, as they cross the Atlantic, she prompts him to play\u00a0a game of telling the \u201cabsolute truth\u201d in which, Ted reflects, she \u201cwas suddenly giving me the moral authority to act on my desires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Swanson’s indebtedness to Patricia Highsmith is clear, particularly to\u00a0Strangers on a Train<\/em>.\u00a0 Like Highsmith, he uses a meeting \u2018in transit\u2019 as a temptation scene in which an accidental acquaintance seeks to draw out hidden thoughts, and we, as readers, are teased into reflecting on the self-justifications of the murderer. The scenes in which Lily coaxes Ted to commit murder are very reminiscent of a famous moment in Hitchcock\u2019s film version of the Highsmith novel, in which Bruno Anthony says to Mrs Cunningham, \u201cEveryone has somebody that they want to put out of the way. Oh now surely, Madam, you’re not going to tell me that there hasn’t been a time that you didn’t want to dispose of someone. Your husband, for instance?\u201d Lily\u2019s function, like that of Bruno, is to give expression to unconscious desires \u2013 and to the conviction that there are, surely, some people who deserve to die.<\/p>\n

Once the plane touches down on the East Coast, the seductive thought that one might commit murder begins, of course, to seem less abstract and more fraught with complications. A somewhat prosaic tech entrepreneur, Ted is besotted with Lily but increasingly uneasy about the course of action to which he is committing himself. Lily sees herself as \u201cspecial\u201d, as\u00a0having been \u201cborn with a different kind of morality\u201d, and\u00a0we soon discover that she in fact inhabits a moral universe in which rather many people qualify as deserving murder victims.<\/p>\n

Swanson\u2019s plot is deftly and intricately designed, with numerous twists that genuinely take us by surprise. In comparison to Highsmith\u2019s work, this is a novel very much driven by plot rather than by nuanced psychological portraits or morally probing explorations of the choices that people make. But Lily is a strong central figure, and Swanson grips our attention with the deadly cat-and-mouse games being played by several of the main characters. There are two or three murderers or potential murderers, all of whom have their own secrets and their own reasons for wanting to dispose of people. Swanson makes nerve-racking use of the uncertainties this generates. We are kept in suspense about who will survive and who might stand a chance of turning the tables. What will happen as others engineer killings of their own? How far will Lily get with her freedom intact? Does she deserve to be punished? Will she be? Swanson is not unwilling to sacrifice characters to whom we have grown attached, and he keeps us on the edge of our seats til the end. A thoroughly enjoyable and addictive thriller.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Peter Swanson,\u00a0The Kind Worth Killing\u00a0(Feb 2015) Review by Lee Horsley In Peter Swanson\u2019s\u00a0The Kind Worth Killing,\u00a0murderous plans\u00a0are initiated in the<\/p>\n

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