Deadly flashbacks

Winnipeg Free Press

4 days ago

In Peter Swanson's latest novel Kill Your Darlings, We learn pretty early on that Wendy intends to kill her husband Thom.
Why, of course, takes somewhat longer for us to find out.
It's not just that Thom gets drunk out of his mind almost every night, or that he's a cad who somehow gets many younger women to share a bed, he being a self-important literature professor still dreaming of writing the great American novel.
Jason Grow photo
Peter Swanson's latest mystery is told in reverse, from the present back into the past through a series of flashbacks.
Wendy herself is a published poet, putting her one up on Thom.
There's always the possibility, of course, that Thom gets so drunk that he spills the beans about — no, not happening, not going to tell you here.
Did we mention they're filthy rich, or that it was Wendy who brought the money to their marriage, thanks to her first husband Bryce? Her late first husband Bryce.
We're getting a bit ahead of ourselves here, but fear not, we'll soon be getting behind ourselves. Far behind.
Lots of books rely on flashbacks, but what the Massachusetts-based Swanson has done in his 11th murder mystery is tell his story in reverse; he starts with the present, when birthday-sharing Wendy and Thom are turning 50, and follows them back through key and deviously scandalous times, jumping back several years in succeeding chapters, all the way to meeting on a school bus in Grade 8 on a class trip to Washington.
If you're familiar with The Exorcist, it will be helpful in following the plot.
The term 'fiendishly clever' is often applied to Swanson's novels, and indeed he is devilish in his plotting. His best book is Eight Perfect Murders, in which the FBI is befuddled by a serial killer and turns to the owner of an independent bookstore who's blogged about eight classic real-life mystery novels in which the killer gets away with it.
Characters in murder mysteries always harbour secrets, but what Wendy and Thom have are Big Secrets, which bond them more tightly than any marriage vows.
Thom used to have a loathsome boss, an arrogant department head who made Thom's life miserable, and who hit on Wendy — an older chap who swam many mornings by himself in an old quarry. He drowned one morning… terrible tragedy.
Wendy's former in-laws believe she killed her first husband for his money, which they insist should be their money. Wendy keeps thinking they're having her followed — could that just be her imagination?
She and Bryce had a pre-nup that left her penniless if they divorced, but every penny was hers if he died while they were married. Had Wendy really married Bryce for his money?
Kill Your Darlings
Wendy and Thom don't flaunt their money, though they did buy a nifty house in New England, and Wendy lifted her widowed mom out of poverty and into her own little house. Wendy's dad? An abusive drunken waste of oxygen who managed to drown in his bath one night.
Poor Bryce. He had a fancy swimming pool with a really deep end, even if he couldn't swim. What he had every night before bed was a fat cigar and the last of a series of daily stiff drinks, while standing out by his swimming pool. Obviously drunk when he fell into the pool and couldn't get out? Bad luck that Wendy was away at a conference?
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Early on, Wendy reminisced about having met Thom in junior high. When they met again later in life, it was initially magic… and when was that? Well, the official version was that they bumped into each other by chance, after Bryce was dead and buried.
Yeah, sure, your book club is saying.
Kill Your Darlings isn't the easiest book to follow. Flashbacks intermittently filling in the story before returning to the present are one thing, telling the entire story in reverse can be quite challenging. And in this case well worth it.
It can be a nasty world inside Peter Swanson's head. Go there if you dare.
Retired Free Press reporter Nick Martin is grateful to the librarian who explained to him that the author's telling the story in reverse didn't mean starting to read the last page first and going backwards in the book to page one.