Mr. Swanson unfolds this creepy story with the assurance and economy of a master. Surprises follow one another with inevitability, until the final electrifying jolt.
... an A-list domestic thriller ... Before She Knew Him burns slowly but brightly from the first paragraph. You won’t find a good place to stop reading. The pacing is so well staged that the pages flow one into the next until you’re sliding feet first into the story with no hope of attaining any sort of traction. If that isn’t enough, Swanson lobs a few hand grenades into the proceedings during the final quarter of the book, just to make sure you’re still awake. You will be, and you’ll never meet the new folks on the block again without thinking of it.
Before She Knew Him is a wicked thriller that does not disappoint. Peter Swanson has written another gem that pulls the reader in and never lets go, even as the story comes to a close. This is a book that will keep you up at night and haunt your thoughts. A fun, chilling read.
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.
