'The Kind Worth Killing' by Peter Swanson - SPOILER REVIEW

If you haven't already read 'The Kind Worth Killing', I'd suggest you do that before reading this review. If you haven't heard of 'The Kind Worth Killing', go and check out my spoiler free review of it that was posted a couple of weeks ago!

"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."

Because of the thriller nature of 'The Kind Worth Killing' I didn't want to spoiler any of the big twists, but now it's been out for a week I thought I'd post a blog wrapping up all of my thoughts on the novel and the events that unfolded, so if you're ready to be spoiled - and beware, they are big ones - start scrolling now...







1) The death of Ted.
OH. MY. GOD. I was not expecting this massive twist at the end of part one. Because of the flawless nature of Ted and Lily's plan of how to kill Miranda, I just assumed that it was all going to go off without a hitch and the rest of the novel would be centered upon the two of them learning to fully trust each other and attempting to get away with their crime. I thought that the arrival of Brad at Ted's door would cause Ted to kill Brad in a panic, so the fact that the roles were reversed was extremely unexpected.

2) Faith = Miranda.
I wasn't so surprised by this twist, because it had crossed my mind. The fact that Lily recounted her murder of her cheating boyfriend, Eric Washburn, and didn't tell us about how she got revenge on the girl he double-crossed her with, automatically put me on high alert, so I did consider that possibly she was offering to help Ted to get her revenge on a girl from her past. When it was revealed I was slightly surprised, because I thought I was way off, but it was good to have my suspicions confirmed.

3) Brad killing Miranda.
Again, wasn't too surprised. It did cross my mind a couple of times in the lead up to her death that possibly Brad could be deceiving her, or possibly he could be planning to kill Lily, but I thought that Lily would end up avenging Ted eventually, so I wasn't too worried about her. It was still a big slap in the face for Miranda, when the guy that she'd been manipulating for months decided to whack her with a huge wrench, so that made me extremely happy.

4) Lily killing Brad.
:( . I knew it was going to happen, deep deep down, because Lily was going to kill him and frame him for Miranda's death when she was planning with Ted, but because he'd been smart enough to choose to kill Miranda instead of being overcome by her charm offensive I kind of wanted him to survive it.

5) Lily attempting to kill Detective Kimball.
I thought Lily would be smarter than this! I know she obviously didn't want the detective following her, because it showed that he must have been suspicious about her involvement in the Seversons murders, but I hoped she'd recycle Miranda's tactics and charm him into falling in love with her, so that she could have then killed him in a more subtle way. After how well Lily had managed to plan ahead, faultlessly executing the other murders, I thought she'd be smarter than to attempt to take down a police officer in plain sight, especially when she must have known that he'd had a partner who he had probably been reporting to. This just seemed like something that had been included to wrap the story up and make sure that justice was served, instead of seeming like a step by step manifesto on how to get away with murder.


6) Lily getting caught in the end.
It actually really annoyed me that Lily got caught in the end, because I really liked her character and empathised with her reasons for all of the murders, which probably makes me a serial killer sympathiser, but her character was just so well written! Peter Swanson was very clever in leaving the novel in such a place - with the news that the field that she hid the bodies in was being dug up - because it makes it seem very obvious that she will be convicted for all three of the murders (possibly Eric's murder as well) but it would have been interesting to see how the trial played out, because Lily might have been able to talk her way out of the situation.