Before She Knew Him

January 1, 2019
The latest thriller from Swanson (All the Beautiful Lies, 2018, etc.) is a twisty, fast-paced tale that depicts picket-fence suburbia's seamy, murderous underside.Hen and her husband, Lloyd, have just left Boston for the tranquil burbs, and things are looking up for her. After a psychotic break sparked by the unsolved murder of a neighbor, Hen is on the mend, her bipolar disorder under control, her optimism resurgent, her career as an illustrator of dark YA books taking off. At a meet and greet she and her husband hit it off, or think they should, with their next-door neighbors Matthew and Mira, the only other childless couple nearby. But when they cross the driveway for a barbecue, the potential for neighborly coziness curdles. Hen notices a little fencing trophy on a shelf in Matthew's office and recognizes it--or wonders if she recognizes it--as one of the mementos the police reported was stolen from the murder scene in the city. When Hen recalls that the man killed was once a student at the prep school where Matthew teaches history, Hen grows suspicious of Matthew--and starts to stalk him. Is this a break in the case or the beginning of another fit of paranoia? And even if it's the former, who will believe Hen's suspicions given her earlier obsession with the case and the hospitalization it led to? Swanson is at his best in exploring the kinship--or what some see as the kinship--between artist and killer, one of the themes of Swanson's great model and forebear, Patricia Highsmith. Swanson isn't quite up to Highsmith's lofty mark, and he succumbs toward the end to a soap opera-like plot-twist-too-far...but for the most part, this novel delivers.A dark, quick-moving, suspenseful story stuffed full of psychological quirk and involution.

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Sophie Amoss and Graham Halstead team up to narrate this twisty thriller about Hen, a bipolar artist who's convinced she's solved a cold case murder. Because of her illness, however, neither the police nor her husband completely believes her--especially when she accuses her neighbor, a well-respected high school teacher. Amoss, who performs the majority of the audiobook, is careful to avoid foreshadowing, leaving listeners to question whether Hen is mentally stable or undergoing a manic episode. Amoss's soft, youthful voice is a foil to the building tension as Hen's snooping becomes more reckless. Halstead narrates a couple of first-person interludes with a dispassionate delivery, adding another creepy dimension. Listeners will be guessing right up to the end of this psychological suspense. C.B.L. � AudioFile 2019, Portland, Maine

February 15, 2019
What would happen if a serial killer met the perfect confidant, someone who would never be believed if they revealed his or her secrets? Nothing good. Hen and Lloyd Mazur's move to the suburbs is meant to be a fresh start; Hen has recently been released from a psychiatric hospital after a manic episode sparked a dangerous obsession with the murder of her neighbor, Dustin Scott. Their first dinner with new neighbors Matthew and Mira Dolamore is going smoothly until Hen recognizes a fencing trophy in Matthew's office that she knows was taken from Scott's murder scene. Certain that Matthew is Scott's killer, Hen begins following him and soon wins a hollow victory when she witnesses him killing another man. Matthew, however, has seen her, too, and?confident that Hen's mental-health challenges make her an unreliable witness?he seizes the opportunity to unburden himself. Instead of relieving pressure, though, this dangerous connection sends Matthew spiraling out of control, leaving only Hen to stop him. Swanson has crafted another bar-raising psychological thriller with this tense, unexpected spin on serial killers and those obsessed with them.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)