Eight Perfect Murders

If you enjoy a good mystery then you would really enjoy this!! It’s a book lovers dream!! A bookseller that is thrown into a mystery…yes please!!!! I thoroughly enjoyed this novel!!

At first, I thought I'm not gonna love this book because of its rating here in GR. Now the question is, why is the rating only 3.63?? This book left me in awe after the last page, and I kind of not want it to end and know what's gonna happen next even though it's clearly narrated what will happen but still. This book made me go to Google and search for some facts about the book. Malcolm Kershaw, the narrator, can not be trusted at all. Like, there's a lot of secrets, a lot of twisted stories told before revealing his true colors. And that's what made me love this book. I also love that I discovered a lot of thriller books because of this book. Indeed, this book is about books. Will definitely add the books mentioned here in my TBR. Especially the Agatha Christie ones since I already started with her with And Then There Were None a few days ago. Peter Swanson gained another fan in me. I can't get over the fact that it was Mal who's the reason behind the death of his wife, Claire Mallory—also Marty Kingship is the one who's doing the murders based on the right perfect murders list made by Mal. This is such a clever book.

** spoiler alert ** How can this be Malcolm Kershaw #1?

Okay-ish, kinda predictable but still a page-turner overall.

pretty solid. this does spoil a lot of "famous" (i'd never heard of most) mystery novels but i really didn't mind. this was a good mystery and i had fun! i did guess the murderer and thought the twists were pretty meh but was along for the ride. another average Peter Swanson and a very average thriller, overall.

2.5/5stars Books are time travel. True readers all know this. But books don’t just take you back to the time in which they were written; they can take you back to different versions of yourself. After reading The Kind Worth Killing, I was so excited to read another Peter Swanson book. But goddamn was this a letdown. I mean, the idea was interesting, the premise was amazing! And it even mentioned some of my fav books (the secret history etc) but the direction it took after 50% and then end, well, the end was a fucking disaster. It would have been better if I'd have read this before and the kind worth killing later. But, I don't think I will bother reading any other Swanson book because a lot of booktubers found The Kind Worth Killing their best work, so like, no. I am out XD The thing is, and maybe I’m biased by all those years I’ve spent in fictional realms built on deceit, I don’t trust narrators any more than I trust the actual people in my life. We never get the whole truth, not from anybody. When we first meet someone, before words are ever spoken, there are already lies and half-truths. The clothes we wear cover the truth of our bodies. But they also present who we want to be to the world. They are fabrications, figuratively and literally. Book Trigger Warnings-pedophilia, teachers abusing/ being handsy with girls, drugs and alcohol abuse

3.5 ⭐️. I loved the book as it was ramping up, but by the end I was just confused

I am not the target audience for this book. I found the protagonist annoying. I don’t love unreliable narrators. I didn’t appreciate all the clever references to other mysteries. If you like these things, though, you’ll probably find this book clever and interesting.

This book was just perfect...

I wasn't entirely sure what to expect from the story given it's titled "Eight Perfect Murders" but it was so fascinating.

Reason it's missing half a star? There were some scenes and parts that had me questioning why (they were there and so on) and not wanting to rate the book 5 stars but later on they just made sense and were in some way necessary but still they kinda 'annoyed' me.

Lastly, it was my first book written by Swanson but his writing style is pretty nice and the way he tells a story.. DAMN! The suspensefulness we get as a reader and I have to admit the culprit(s) were in some way really unexpected. I honestly thought for a while that our narrator is the perpetrator all along (like the story: detective-Murderer at the same time without knowing it) but in the end that wasn't really the case. Just some of his actions can be viewed that way so not entirely off 😂

I assumed that he is the murderer pretty early partly because of what was going on but also because of what he said. At the same time that was also what made me rethink my ongoing assumptions. The fact that he's revealing it in such a bland way but with a questionable aura (also against himself) was so confusing.. but well I guess that shows that this story just had an unreliable narrator ;)

In the end I guess what I liked most about the story (besides the awesome plot) is the fact that Swanson managed to turn his book into a story as if the narrator has written it and not him being just the storyteller!

Also the way he recaps stuff and actually corrects a few things during the last pages was such a nice fitting ending.

Now truly LASTLY, I quite enjoyed that we got a retelling of how the murders unfolded and what exactly happened told through a conversation as a 'flashback'. We were shown what was really going on in a way that wasn't out of place and actually getting the story further along.

But back to the story. It was such an engaging, enjoyable and page turning read! Loved it ☺

This is fine? It's an interesting read but also I found it a tad predictable. Then again, perhaps that's because I read too many mysteries, and (view spoiler)[you can only really be Roger Ackroyd-ed once (hide spoiler)]. I did appreciate (view spoiler)[that the narrator admits to being a murderer about a third of the way in, which made the rest of the book more about unraveling how/if he's involved with the other deaths rather than making it seem like he was completely innocent (hide spoiler)], but still... eh? Reasonable read if you like mysteries and echoes of other literary icons.

as is the case with most of the thrillers i read, a majority of this book was pretty boring. i was pretty disinterested until the killer was revealed which i didn’t see coming but also wasn’t that surprising?? the other twist definitely caught me off guard, though.

a very unsettling read while the reveal caught me by surprise,i wasn't into the descriptive style of it all hence im sticking to a 3 for now.

Mal who own's crime/ mystery focused bookstore and is crime aficionado reader who hasn't actually read anything resembling mystery, thriller, crime or suspense book other then blurbs and other readers reviews enough to recommend the books to his customers. But when a FBI agent comes to tell him someone is using his first ever blog post for Old Devils Bookstore labeled "eight perfect murders" which list the best fiction murders to actually kill people and she needs his expertise to catch this serial killer. this is one of the first books that had me annotating the book and writing down my theory's (a lot of wrong theory's I might add LOL). It kept me guessing the whole time, trying to find the killer before Malcom did. Also grew my TBR List because now I must read all 8 books that have the perfect fiction murders.

It wanted to love this one so much , but has you can see, it took me almost a year to read. I picked it up and put it down so many times in the last few months, it just was too slow paced for me unfortunately. I will say that I loved the ending though.

Overall I enjoyed this book. It was a solid 4 stars to me. It was a little slow to start but one it get started I had a hard time putting it down. I enjoyed the twists near the end. It kept me guessing who the murderer was and how the book would be wrapped up. Thank you Goodreads and Harper Collins Publishing for the free advanced reading copy. All opinions are my own.

This books was sooo good. The amount of plot twists might have been a little much but it just made the end that much better.

Books are time travel. True readers all know this. But books don’t just take you back to the time in which they were written; they can take you back to different versions of yourself. 3.5/5 - Well, that was fun.

3.9⭐ Woah. The way some books remind u of old school romance, this reminds u of old school murder. If you are a Agatha fan which I hope u r, this book is tailor made for u. I had so much fun reading this one and there must have been instances where it made me jump. I kind of wanted the book to end in some kind of showdown or something, but they way it ended felt more real & I am satisfied. The only thing that bugs me is...the narrator. It's like one of those friends who tell you something & then say they'll tell you the whole thing later. Also there r spoilers in the book for other books like ABC murders, & 7 others so you would want to read that if you don't want to spoil it for yourself. Pick this up, u won't regret it.

This book was perfect, except for the ending... Still worth the read! The amount of book references and how those books were important to the plot was incredible, I couldn’t stop reading

The twist in this one definitely threw me. I didn't see it coming and I honestly enjoyed this book more for it. It was a good mystery story in which 8 murders are being recreated from 8 mystery books. Swanson used some classic books such as Agatha Christie's The ABC murders which made it feel more real. The characters just felt so distant and I didn't truly connect with any of them or feel that there were any relationships between any of them that I cared about.

Reading vlog: https://youtu.be/eH073zw27SI ⭐️ 3 Stars ⭐️ I actually really enjoyed the book. I read it in a audiobook and it was really fun, the narrator is good so I’d recommend! Now I’m a plot driven reader, and the plot was really nice and entertaining! But the big twist, was really predictable. I enjoyed the idea and concept, but the characters weren’t really good. The plot made helped this book for sure

Really enjoyed! The twists came at good times. Loved the book references. Audiobook was perfect! I was fine with the ending Audiobook from LA to PVD

Something to note, if you read this just be aware that the twists in the 8 classic murder mysterys mentioned in this book will be SPOILED. I liked how this ended, I kept trying to guess the ending and how it all came together and I didn’t!