The Kind Worth Killing

Starred review from December 8, 2014
Revenge has rarely been served colder than in Swanson’s exceptional thriller, his second standalone after 2013’s The Girl with a Clock for a Heart. When Ted Severson, a wealthy Boston entrepreneur, and Lily Kintner, an attractive archivist at Winslow College outside Boston, meet by chance in a Heathrow airport lounge, they trade intimate secrets: Ted wants to kill his unfaithful wife, Miranda—and Lily, who’s about Miranda’s age, wants to help. Unbeknownst to Ted, Lily has made a career of dispassionate homicide, at one point musing, “to take another life was, in many ways, the greatest expression of what it meant to be alive.” While Ted and Lily hatch their devious scheme back in Boston, police detective Henry Kimball tries to untangle the web of deceit that surrounds Lily. With scalpel-sharp prose, Swanson probes the nature of cold-blooded evil. Few will be prepared for the crushing climax. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber Associates.

This is an audiobook that grips the listener from the opening sentence and gets even better as the story progresses, all because the engaging performances of narrators Johnny Heller, Karen White, Kathleen Early, and Keith Szarabajka complement Swanson's compelling psychological thriller. While an ensemble cast could have overwhelmed this book, these narrators enhance the story by creating distinct and memorable personas of its many psychopaths. From the moment Ted Severson and Lily Kintner meet on a transatlantic flight and begin playing a seemingly fatal game of psychological chess, the production shines. It's hard to say which performance is best; however, Kathleen Early's seemingly emotionless presentation of Lily Swanson's complex character stands out among the narrators' stellar presentations. D.J.S. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2015, Portland, Maine