Nine Lives

Product Information

With rare exceptions such as bank holidays, the book group meets on the first Wednesday of every month at 7. It's probably bad when you feel relief over a character's death because at least it means you get to cut down on some of the jumping between perspectives. Just to clear the air, I found this to be MUCH better than Swanson’s previous novel, Every Vow You Break.

But for the nine complete strangers who receive it – each of them recognising just one name, their own, on the enclosed list – it will be the most life altering letter they ever receive. Peter Swanson is back - with a chilling and fiendish puzzle of novel, the crime novel everyone will be talking about.FBI agent Jessica Winslow receives a list and while she wants to ignore it, something inside of her makes her decide to investigate. I picked up Peter Swanson’s Nine Lives because everything I read about it mentioned Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None. He caught a connection between the lists and Christie’s classic novel, and read it several times while the investigation was ongoing. I didn’t think this was something mind-blowingly unique or anything like that but it did keep me glued to the pages to see what was going to happen next and honestly that’s all I can ask of a thriller sometimes! Swanson creates whole worlds for his characters which we become invested in very quickly, and even though I knew that each of these people were going to be killed as the book continued I found myself feeling a real connection to them.

The book is broken down into sections beginning with NINE- We learn what each of the characters are doing when they receive the letter.

Another reason was that it is a semi-homage to And Then There Were None which I consider to be one of the most brilliantly written mysteries ever. The "List-of-Nine case" as the Detective Sam Hamilton refers to it, wants to learn how nine names on a list are related and why the list is dwindling. Book Description: The story of nine strangers who receive a cryptic list with their names on it – and then begin to die in highly unusual circumstances. They’re a diverse group, mostly in their mid-thirties, bar the ill-fated Frank and a recent retiree by the name of Jack Radebaugh.