Before She Knew Him Book By Peter Swanson From the enormously talented author of The Kind Worth Killing comes an exquisitely chilling story of a young suburban wife with a story of psychological instability whose fears about her new neighbor could lead them both to murder. . .
Book Details
| Title | Before She Knew Him |
| Author | Peter Swanson |
| Type | Thriller, Suspense, Psychological Fiction |
| Year of Publication | March 5, 2019 |
| Language | English |
| File Format | |
| Number of Pages | 564 |
Before She Knew Him Summary
Hen and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new house on the outskirts of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen (short for Henrietta) is an illustrator who works in a close study and has found the right medications to control her bipolar disorder. Finally, he has found some stability and peace.
But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode when they see a familiar object shown on the shelf in the husband’s office. The sports trophy looks exactly like one that disappeared from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. Hen knows because he has always been fascinated with this unsolved murder, an obsession he no longer talks about, but can’t shake off completely.
Could your neighbor, Matthew, be a murderer? Or is this the beginning of another psychotic episode like the one he suffered in college when it was consumed so much by proving that a fellow student was guilty that he ended up hurting a classmate?
The more Hen observes Matthew, the more he suspects that he is planning something really scary. However, no one will believe him. Then, one night, when he is face to face with Matthew in a dark parking lot, he realizes that he knows that he has been watching him, that he is really interested in him. And that this is the beginning of a horrible nightmare from which he cannot live to escape. . .
Before She Knew Him Review
Hen and her husband, Lloyd, have just left Boston for the quiet burbs, and things are looking for her. After a psychotic breakdown caused by the unsolved murder of a neighbor, Hen is recovering, his bipolar disorder under control, his optimism resurfaces, and his career as an illustrator of dark books of ALREADY taking off. In a meeting and greeting, she and her husband liked each other, or they think they should, with their neighbors next door Matthew and Mira, the only other couple with no children nearby. But when they cross the driveway for a barbecue, the potential for neighboring comfort curdles. Hen notices a small fencing trophy on a shelf in Matthew’s office and recognizes it, or wonders if he recognizes it, as one of the memories reported by the police, was stolen from the crime scene in the city.
When Hen remembers that the murdered man was once a high school student where Matthew teaches history, Hen begins to suspect Matthew and begins to harass him. Is this a break in the case or the beginning of another attack of paranoia? And even if it comes first, who will believe Hen’s suspicions given his previous obsession with the case and the hospitalization it generated? Swanson is at its best exploring kinship, or what some see as kinship, between artist and murderer, one of the themes of Swanson’s great model and ancestor, Patricia Highsmith. Swanson is not up to the noble mark of Highsmith and succumbs towards the end of a soap opera plot as a turn too far … but, for the most part, this novel meets.
A dark story, fast-moving and full of suspense full of psychological peculiarity and involution.
About The Author
Peter Swanson is the author of five novels, including The Kind Worth Killing, winner of the New England Society Book Award and finalist of the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger, and Her Every Fear, an NPR book of the year. His books have been translated into 30 languages, and his stories, poetry, and features have appeared in Asimov’s Science Fiction, The Atlantic Monthly, Measure, The Guardian, The Strand Magazine, and Yankee Magazine.
A graduate of Trinity College, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, and Emerson College, he lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with his wife and cat.
Before She Knew Him PDF
