Nine Lives

By: Peter Swanson

“The awful thing about loneliness…is that it isn’t always cured by other people.”

Nine strangers receive a piece of paper with a list of names on it. There’s no return address, no other information on the piece of paper; just the nine names. Most of them dismiss it, maybe mentioning it to others, but some just toss it away. One of the ones that receives the list of names is an FBI agent, so she starts an investigation. Then, one of the people who are in the list is found dead. Then another one is shot while out for a run. What do these nine people have in common, and why is someone targeting them?

This book was so boring. I literally had to force myself to finish it. There are too many characters so there is absolutely zero character development. I don’t know if some would call this a slow burn, but the time it took between what some may describe as action, was so long and all the author did was describe the daily activities of each character. Daily activity that had zero to do with the actual plot of the book. I was waiting for a wow moment, for even just something more to happen that would surprise me, and it never came.

I also found the book to be predictable. I even guessed who it was ahead of time, and if a book is written well, I am always the one that can never figure it out. The author drew inspiration from Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, and he won’t let you forget it with the amount of times it was mentioned in the book. The whole ending and the why just didn’t make sense to me, at least not enough for the person’s actions.

This was just a total letdown, and I don’t think I’ll be reading anymore Peter Swanson books. If you do like this author, you can find the book here.