The Book:
The Kind Worth Killing by Peter Swanson
Published February 3, 2015 by William Morrow
Date read: August 22, 2022
The Characters:
Ted, Lily, Miranda
Buy it on Bookshop.org | Amazon
The Plot (from Goodreads):
On a night flight from London to Boston, Ted Severson meets the stunning and mysterious Lily Kintner. Sharing one too many martinis, the strangers begin to play a game of truth, revealing very intimate details about themselves. Ted talks about his marriage that’s going stale and his wife Miranda, who he’s sure is cheating on him. Ted and his wife were a mismatch from the start—he the rich businessman, she the artistic free spirit—a contrast that once inflamed their passion, but has now become a cliché.
But their game turns a little darker when Ted jokes that he could kill Miranda for what she’s done. Lily, without missing a beat, says calmly, “I’d like to help.” After all, some people are the kind worth killing, like a lying, stinking, cheating spouse. . . .
Back in Boston, Ted and Lily’s twisted bond grows stronger as they begin to plot Miranda’s demise. But there are a few things about Lily’s past that she hasn’t shared with Ted, namely her experience in the art and craft of murder, a journey that began in her very precocious youth.
Suddenly these co-conspirators are embroiled in a chilling game of cat-and-mouse, one they both cannot survive . . . with a shrewd and very determined detective on their tail.
As a child, Lily murdered Chet, an artist staying with her parents who had sexually assaulted her and likely would have raped her if he got the chance. She pushed him into a well in a meadow near her house that only she knew about.
Later, Lily murdered her college boyfriend Eric for dating another girl, Faith, at the same time as her. Eric had a fatal nut allergy, and Lily served him Indian food with hidden nuts in it. She had hidden his Epi pen, and waited to call an ambulance until he was already dead.
The Twist:
Miranda was Faith, the boyfriend stealer. Miranda and Ted had run into Lily in Boston, and while Ted didn’t remember, Lily had and had engineered their meeting.
Ted was just about to go through with his plan to kill Miranda when Brad showed up at his house and killed him instead. Apparently, Miranda and Brad had been conspiring to kill Ted at the same time that Ted and Lily were conspiring to kill Miranda.
Lily goes to Maine to avenge Ted. She is able to triple-cross Miranda and Brad: she convices Brad that Miranda is just using him and that she should be killed. Brad offers to do it, so Lily has him tell Miranda their plan so that Miranda would think Brad was sneaking into the house to kill Lily. Once Brad has killed Miranda, Lily offers him a drink before they hide the body. It’s laced, and she garotts Brad once he is subdued. She leaves Miranda’s body in their beach house and takes Brad’s to the well where she buried Chet all those years ago.
The detective is onto Lily, and she knows it. She lures him to a random empty cemetery, knowing he’ll follow her to see what she is up to. She stabs him, but unluckily the detective’s partner was watching him to make sure he wasn’t getting himself into trouble. The partner was worried that the detective had become too obsessed with Lily.
The Ending:
Lily is in jail after stabbing the detective, but all signs point to her being let free. She had a solid story that he had been stalking her, startled her, and she stabbed him in self-defense. Someone happened to discover the dirty limericks that the detective had written about Lily, which may have sealed his fate.
However, right at the end of the book, Lily’s dad writes her a letter saying that the meadow where Chet and Brad were buried is about to be dug up as the land was sold to a new developer. It is unclear whether her dad knew more than he was letting on, or just rambling in his old age.
The Review:
I can certainly see what the fuss is all about, I loved this thriller. I don’t know what took me so long to read it, since I love the other titles I’ve read by Peter Swanson. The sequel coming out soon spurred me to finally pick it up.
This story was so well-written, and I had no idea where the plot was going. I love being stumped in my thrillers! It unfolded at the perfect pace, and I enjoyed how the ending was wrapped up efficiently while leaving a cliffhanger open for the sequel. I’m excited to see where it goes from here!
If you’re ready for the next book in the series, head over to my review of The Kind Worth Saving here.
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