A fascinating exploration of the corrosive effects of guilt ... Swanson’s meticulously plotted, uniquely structured domestic thriller is a fascinating exploration of the corrosive effects of guilt and a chilling reinforcement of the conventional wisdom that one can never really know what goes on inside someone else’s marriage.
A heady, allusive, tweedy-seedy slow burn ... Although Swanson takes his time setting up and playing out pivotal scenes, his book is flab-free; a naturalistic-seeming detail in one chapter ends up having a significance that’s brought to light in a later (which is to say chronologically earlier) chapter. That the novel is both a meditation on comeuppance and a steely nail-biter jibes with Thom’s regularly reported tastes in books and movies: Over the years, his loyalties seem to be evenly split between the literary and the spine-tingling. If Swanson can be said to be pinching from one of Thom’s favorite film noirs, it’s with total awareness and to sublime effect.
