Book Notices | Gone the Next by Ben Rehder / Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson

Ben Rehder, Gone the Next

Amazon   This is another book that somehow has been sitting unread on my (virtual) shelves for years. And while it's languished on my Kindle, the author has added another four books to the series, now seven books strong. Gone the Next introduces Roy Ballard, a charming smart alec who pays his bills by investigating insurance fraud. That means he stakes out insurance claimants hoping to film them exercising or picking up heavy objects when their alleged injuries should preclude it. It's a stakeout that lands him in some trouble in this first outing: while on duty, Roy catches site of a child who's been all over the news. But try convincing the police that you saw a kidnapped girl when you've got a history like Roy's! The book also introduces a small cast of characters to flesh out Roy's world—a love interest, an accomplice, a policeman with whom he's mostly at odds. I liked the characters. I liked the story. Mostly I liked Roy's personality, and I'm glad he's got a series wrapped around him.

Peter Swanson, Eight Perfect Murders

Amazon   A murder mystery that references Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train and whose protagonist is a cat-owning bookstore owner? Count me in! It turns out that life in the book trade is more dangerous than you'd expect. Someone's killing people, evidently using a blogged list of perfect literary crimes as a template, and the list's author, Malcolm Kershaw, is called in by the FBI to lend his expertise. This all seems like a straightforward, if unlikely, series of events plot-wise, but straightforward flies out the window early on as Swanson starts throwing twists at us. And the twists keep coming. It's a good read, with my one caveat being that I felt there were too many names of victims tossed around. I couldn't keep them straight, and I felt it distanced me from the story somewhat. Another consideration is that Strangers on a Train is not the only classic novel mentioned here. Readers who are more familiar with the books on the murderer's list will probably connect more with Swanson's novel. I was only familiar with some of them.