Book Review: The Kind Worth Killing

Holy moly, what a fantastic thriller! Adroit, gripping, relentless and meticulously crafted, Peter Swanson's The Kind Worth Killing is all sorts of phenomenal, re-imagining Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train against a modern backdrop to plot the perfect murder. On a transatlantic flight from London to Boston, Ted Severson runs into the mysterious but stunning Lily Kintner. Finding her attractive and easygoing, he begins to talk about his troubled marital life. After all, why not? She is a complete stranger, and they are likely to go about their own ways once the journey is all but over. He thus goes on to tell how he recently found that his wife has been cheating on him with a building contractor, and that how he wished he could kill her for breaking his heart. Lily, in turn responds calmly, "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." And to think this is only the beginning!