Eight Perfect Murders

by Peter Swanson

This is the first mystery book that I have read in which the narrator was a murderer.

It starts off introducing us to a man who is co-owner of a book store specializing in mystery books. An female FBI agent comes to see him because she has noticed a connection between a list of that he created on a blog of perfect murders seem to match some recent murders.  Most of the books are classic murder mysteries including one Agatha Christie Book, the ABC murders.  The agent gets him to come with her as part of her investigation of one murder, a women he knew, a former client. There he finds the books he mentioned in his list on her bookshelf.

The young agent is found to be in conflict of interest, one of her family members was murdered, and she is taken off the case.  Some other agents come to visit the man. He suspects they may be suspecting him.

We learn that the man had an unfaithful wife, who fell back into drug use when she met another man, a supporter of the arts.  The man's wife and this man also had an affair.  The main characters wife, we are told, died in a car crash.

The man had gone onto the dark web and threw out an invitation for someone to join him in a murder pact like in one of the books he referenced.  The man wants his wife's lover murdered and another man comes forward who wants a person murdered.  They commit the crimes as agreed.

As things are progressing the man thinks that his accomplice may plan to out him and he gets worried.  He asks some questions of a policeman he knows. Then thinks perhaps he shouldn't have.

It turns out that the accomplice was the policeman.  In the end the main character goes to the house of his dead female customer with plans to drown himself in the lake/river on her property.

It was an interesting story,  I didn't really suspect the man was a murderer.  We find out that not only did he get his wife's lover killed, he killed his wife by forcing her car off the road.