EIGHT PREFECT MURDERS

EIGHT PERFECT MURDERS by Peter Swanson

Let's talk murder mysteries for a moment! My favorite genre is mystery. I get down right antsy if I know there's not one somewhere in my pile to read, and I make a dash to the bookstore! But let's talk the reality of mysteries. They can have you puzzling and guessing from one minute to the next. You can enjoy the satisfaction of wrongs being made right! They can also have you sludging through bogs of moral slime. After all sin is the root of mystery is it not? Whether the motive is anger, jealousy, lies, revenge (which is normally the result of someone else's sinful actions), sexual situations (adultery, molestation), etc, etc it all boils down to sin, and some mysteries absolutely glorify this aspect and pile it on! So why do I bring this up?

I wanted to love Peter Swanson's Eight Perfect Murders (after all my maiden name is Swanson!). I loved the concept of a bookstore owner that wrote a post about 8 perfect, unsolvable murder mysteries based off of real books that are years later being committed. The problem is we hit a "bog." Normally if the bog is language, I can get through it or a situation I can walk through if it doesn't glorify in the details or sometimes you can skip over an unnecessary happening. Sometimes it seems the author has a dump. One thing after another until I find myself asking, "Are there any other possibilities that you didn't throw into this mix?" In this book we hit a character who has drug addiction, molestation, multiple adulterous relationships, abuse, etc in just a matter of a few pages. So what do I do in those situations? Sometimes they are so deep and detailed I trash the book! Sometimes, like in this one, I skip to the end and read who did it to satisfy my brain. (I can honestly say in this one, I saw it from a mile away.) Then I throw it away.

This post isn't to tell you where to set your shut the book moment. It's just to share with you my philosophy on how I approach books to understand my cut off point. When I start to feel "bogged down by the bog" I'm done!