Book Review - Nine Lives by Peter Swanson

Title: Nine Lives
Author: Peter Swanson
Genre: Mystery/ Thriller
Published: 2022
 
Description: Nine strangers receive a list with their names on it in the mail. Nothing else, just a list of names on a single sheet of paper. None of the nine people know or have met the others on the list. They dismiss it as junk mail, a fluke – until very, very bad things begin happening to people on the list. First, a well-liked old man is drowned on a beach in the small town of Kennewick, Maine. Then, a father is shot in the back while running through his quiet neighborhood in suburban Massachusetts. A frightening pattern is emergin, but what dow these nine people have in common?
 
FBI agent Jessica Winslow, who is on the list herself, is determined to find out. Could there be some dark secret that binds them all together? Or is this the work of a murderous madman? As the mysterious sender stalks these nine strangers, they find themselves constantly looking over their shoulders, wondering who will be crossed off next…
 
Review: My experience with Peter Swanson’s books has been all over the place. I have loved, liked and hated some of his books. I’m sad to say that “Nine Lives” falls in the last category and it’s my least favorite Peter Swanson so far.
 
Nine people receive a list with 9 names on them, among those names is their own. Alison, who is meeting her married lover. Arthur, a nurse injured in a car accident that killed his husband. Ethan is an aspiring songwriter, Jessica an FBI-agent, Caroline is a professor, Jay an actor, Frank is the owner of a resort in Maine. There is Jack and finally Matthew, the father of three. Why did they receive this list? What do they have in common, because they don’t know each other?
 
Soon, people on the list start dying and FBI agent Jessica Winslow is determined to find out the truth behind these lists.
 
The book sounds interesting. It has “And Then There Were None” vibes, which is also being referred to a couple of times in the book. But I did not like this book.
 
First of all, the POV’s. I like books with multiple POV’s, don’t get me wrong. But the way it’s done in “Nine Lives” is very confusing. There are too many points of view, where it’s difficult to distinguish one character from the other. With that, while each chapter is from a different perspective, the chapters have numbers instead of the name of the character. I would have been much easier to follow if the character’s names were also the chapter’s names.
 
The book felt very repetitive. The first couple of chapters is every person finding the list, reading out the names, asking themselves the same questions. And the list is being repeated so many times.
 
The reveal of who the killer is, wasn’t shocking. Not obvious at all, because at this point everyone in the book could have been that person, but it didn't do anything for me. I found their motive very strange and didn’t really hold together for me. It just didn’t make sense, because there are certain people on or not on the list, that make no sense.
 
There were just too many illogical elements in the plot and I also found it very boring. Peter Swanson has officially become a hit-or-miss author for me. Some books I didn’t have any expectations for turned out amazing and the other way around. This is a book by Swanson I would not recommend.
 
Rating: 1,5/ 5