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mtngirl4 's review for:
Nine Lives
by Peter Swanson
A modern day [b:And Then There Were None|16299|And Then There Were None|Agatha Christie|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1638425885l/16299._SY75_.jpg|3038872], nine people receive a list of names, theirs being one of them, and slowly each person is killed off. Each chapter is a different victim's POV until their death, so the reader starts to get to know the character and then can decide to mourn or cheer when they meet their ultimate demise. I read this because I previously enjoyed [b:Eight Perfect Murders|52225186|Eight Perfect Murders|Peter Swanson|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1562582942l/52225186._SX50_SY75_.jpg|71665754] by the same author (Swanson really likes to reference old murder mystery novels in his work which is fun), however, this one was not as good. I knew who the killer was halfway through the book, and figured out the motive about two-thirds the way in. The twist in the last chapter makes up for the easy predictability a little bit.
My biggest take away from this book is that Peter Swanson needs a better editor. I found many errors including the glaring mistake that FBI agent Aaron Berlin starts the book with that surname but ends the book with the surname Levin. It changed somewhere in the middle and I looked back just to confirm this was the same person. And don't worry, it has nothing to do with the red herring in the story, this is a very minor character, in fact this character doesn't even need to be in the book, which makes the whole bad editing so unnecessary and annoying. Another mistake is that another character recalls something significant that happened when she was "12 or 13", then later it repeats that she was "14 or 15". It's just sloppy editing! I saw this sloppiness play out in other ways, such as bad writing: "he had booked two nights at the cabin for the following Friday and Saturday nights" p255; I know it's ticky-tacky, but "nights" is redundant and, though it doesn't make that much of a difference, all the writing throughout the book is clunky like this making it earn 2 stars instead of 3.
That being said, it is a clever premise to modernize a classic that is an easy read that many will like, I just wish it had been written with more savvy.
My biggest take away from this book is that Peter Swanson needs a better editor. I found many errors including the glaring mistake that FBI agent Aaron Berlin starts the book with that surname but ends the book with the surname Levin. It changed somewhere in the middle and I looked back just to confirm this was the same person. And don't worry, it has nothing to do with the red herring in the story, this is a very minor character, in fact this character doesn't even need to be in the book, which makes the whole bad editing so unnecessary and annoying. Another mistake is that another character recalls something significant that happened when she was "12 or 13", then later it repeats that she was "14 or 15". It's just sloppy editing! I saw this sloppiness play out in other ways, such as bad writing: "he had booked two nights at the cabin for the following Friday and Saturday nights" p255; I know it's ticky-tacky, but "nights" is redundant and, though it doesn't make that much of a difference, all the writing throughout the book is clunky like this making it earn 2 stars instead of 3.
That being said, it is a clever premise to modernize a classic that is an easy read that many will like, I just wish it had been written with more savvy.