Her Every Fear

October 17, 2016
Kate Priddy, the heroine of this unconvincing psychological thriller from Swanson (The Kind Worth Killing), who’s still traumatized by a boyfriend turned stalker, impulsively agrees to swap her London flat with Corbin Dell, an American cousin she has never met. After a harrowing plane trip and a ride through Boston’s Sumner Tunnel that prompts a panic attack, Kate arrives at Corbin’s luxurious Beacon Hill apartment just before the discovery of a murder in the apartment next door. The body of book editor Audrey Marshall is marked with gruesome postmortem cuts, which prove to be similar to those of other victims in places where Corbin has lived. Kate begins to suspect that her cousin knows more about Audrey’s murder than he claims. As a fragile Kate tries to hold herself together, another stalker targets her. The characters, especially the female ones, rarely make rational decisions, and Kate herself doesn’t consistently react in the face of grave danger in the manner of someone suffering from crippling anxiety. Swanson fans will hope for a return to form next time. Agent: Nat Sobel, Sobel Weber Associates.

October 15, 2016
Swanson's third thriller, after The Girl with a Clock for a Heart (2014) and The Kind Worth Killing (2015), nods both to the Leopold & Loeb case and to Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley, offering twists and intensity aplenty.A young Englishwoman named Kate, mending after a horrific trauma--her jealous ex stalked her, locked her in a closet, and killed himself just outside it--decides a change of scenery might help restore her, and she agrees to a six-month apartment switch with Corbin, an American cousin she's never met. If she's looking to tamp down her paranoia and learn to trust again, though, her cousin's ultra-luxe Boston apartment is a disastrous choice. As soon as she arrives, Kate discovers there's been a grisly murder next door. A series of small discoveries in the borrowed apartment, a little police attention/skepticism, and a couple of "chance" conversations with neighbors and acquaintances of the victim lead her increasingly to the conclusion that Corbin was romantically involved with the young woman and is the prime suspect. Swanson is most persuasive when we're with the vulnerable but resourceful Kate, who ends up carrying on an ever more dangerous shadow investigation, and with her unlikely romantic interest, an awkward, somewhat creepy (the "somewhat" makes him a rarity--and a catch--in this fictive world), but well-meaning neighbor named Alan. The book flounders a bit when Swanson enters Highsmith territory, attempting to inhabit the minds of sociopathic killers, but he does complicate things interestingly and engineers a tense and intricate finale. A solid and quick-paced thriller--but one that seems to feature a pop-up psychopath behind every door and under every bed.

COPYRIGHT(2016) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

August 1, 2016
Unnerved after an ex-boyfriend kidnapped and nearly killed her, London art student Kate Priddy readily accepts Boston-based cousin Corbin Dell's proposal that they swap apartments for a while. Soon she's alarmed to learn that next-door neighbor Audrey was murdered and even more alarmed when charming Alan Cherney across the courtyard insists that Corbin was friendly with Audrey, which he denies. Swanson's "The Girl with a Clock for a Heart" and "The Kind Worth Killing" are both being made into films. With a 100,000-copy first printing.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from October 1, 2016
London artist Kate Priddy agrees to a temporary apartment swap with her American cousin, hopeful that the move will push her past the crippling fears she's struggled against since she survived an attack by her stalking ex-boyfriend. Kate is certain she has the best of the deal; Corbin Dell's elegant Boston apartment is a far cry from her cramped London flat. But she barely unpacks before detectives arrive to question her about the murder of the woman living across the hall. Corbin claims that he barely knew Audrey Marshall, but Kate doubts his story when she finds Audrey's key hidden in his apartment. As Kate's suspicion mounts, her only friend in Boston, Alan Cherney, confesses that he watched obsessively from his apartment window as Corbin and Audrey developed a secret relationship. When Corbin goes missing in London, Kate becomes the prize in a cat-and-mouse game between killers. The skillfully conjured Boston winter creates the perfect atmosphere for breeding paranoia, which kicks into high gear with the introduction of Cherney's Rear Windowlike flashbacks. Swanson established a reputation for complex psychological thrillers with his previous novels (The Kind Worth Killing, 2015, and The Girl with a Clock for a Heart, 2014), but here he introduces a delicious monster-under-the-bed creepiness to the expected top-notch characterization and steadily mounting anxiety.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)