Another Review at MyShelf.Com

Her Every Fear
Peter Swanson

William Morrow
1/10/16 / ISBN 9780062427021
Thriller

Reviewed by Elise Cooper

 

Her Every Fear, by Peter Swanson, delves into the human psyche and the mind of a serial killer. The story’s strength is with the character’s thoughts. By having four different narratives, readers are able to understand the complete picture of the disturbing circumstances of the plot.

Swanson noted, “The idea for this story has been rattling around in my head for awhile. Originally I was going to write it as a romance where two people swapped apartments, never met, but somehow fell in love. The more I thought about it the more I thought it should be a murder mystery. Then it all clicked, where a woman moves into her cousin’s apartment and the day she arrives a corpse is discovered next door.”

There are just a few times in the story that people might need to suspend belief as the main character, Kate Priddy, becomes a psychopath’s magnet. After being traumatized by an abusive boyfriend, she escapes to Boston, MA, to try to gain some perspective. Kate is able to leave her home in London when she and her cousin, Colin, decide to exchange apartments. Soon after her arrival, she finds her neighbor, Audrey, has been murdered, and the person of interest, her cousin Corbin. To make matters worse, she meets Alan Cherney, a handsome, quiet tenant who lives across the courtyard in the apartment facing Audrey’s. He confesses to Kate that he was drawn to Audrey and basically stalked her from afar. The suspense ratchets up when Kate’s fears, brought on from her intense panic attacks, become well founded as a serial killer, Henry, targets her as his next victim.

This story is reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock. Rear Window, Dial M For Murder and Wait Until Dark come to mind. Drawing inspiration from other movies and books, Swanson commented, “When growing up I loved Roald Dahl, The Hardy Boys, and Nancy Drew. I also watched my first Hitchcock movie, Rope, around the age of ten. It had a scene in it where two college students strangle their victim. I wanted to play off this relationship in my story, having an alpha and beta psychopath with Corbin as the beta and Henry as the alpha. This is definitely a story about the damage men can inflict on women. Besides Rope, the other Hitchcock movies that influenced the story are Rebecca, with the setting becoming an important element, and Dial M For Murder, where the villain does not look like a villain. Since I have seen all 53 of his films I hope to put in my books his mode of suspense.”

This book has readers invested in the characters. It is a psychological study of obsessive relationships that include Allen with Audrey, Corbin and Henry, and her ex-boyfriend George with Kate. It is a story of betrayal and revenge where monsters lurk under every bed.

Reviewed 2017
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