Review: Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson

Before She Knew Him by Peter Swanson

Expected Publication: March 5, 2019

Publisher: William Morrow

Format: via NetGalley

Rating: 4.5/5    

Synopsis

Hen and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new house outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen (short for Henrietta) is an illustrator and works out of a studio nearby, and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder. Finally, she’s found some stability and peace.

But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband’s office shelf. The sports trophy looks exactly like one that went missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. Hen knows because she’s long had a fascination with this unsolved murder—an obsession she doesn’t talk about anymore, but can’t fully shake either.

Could her neighbor, Matthew, be a killer? Or is this the beginning of another psychotic episode like the one she suffered back in college when she became so consumed with proving a fellow student guilty that she ended up hurting a classmate?

The more Hen observes Matthew, the more she suspects he’s planning something truly terrifying. Yet no one will believe her. Then one night, when she comes face to face with Matthew in a dark parking lot, she realizes that he knows she’s been watching him, that she’s really on to him. And that this is the beginning of a horrifying nightmare she may not live to escape.

My Thoughts

I’ve become a huge Peter Swanson fan recently and I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on so when I heard he had a new book coming out I couldn't wait to read it. It seems like his books just get better and when I finished his latest read… WOW is all I could say… this one blew my mind!

In Before She Knew Him we met Hen and Lloyd who recently have moved out to the suburbs and decide one night to join the neighborhood block party to be nice and be neighborly but soon they become friends with the only other couple who don't have kids, Matthew and Mira and realize they are actually next door neighbors. They soon have dinner together and while having a tour of the house something in Matthews office soon catches Hen's eye a simple trophy that makes something click in her head. She soon becomes obsessed with this trophy and remembers it from the newspapers a few years back connected to a murder. She then becomes convinced that Matthew is a murderer and makes it her mission to prove it. She starts to follow and spies on him trying to get any evidence to prove that she is right and not having another manic episode like she has in the past.

Years ago Hen began having manic episodes and it got so bad she was asked to leave school after an altercation with a fellow student. She soon became consumed with all things murder related and when a few murders happen nearby she studied them as if it was her job. However, with the help of family and Lloyd she balanced her meds and got her issues under controlled but after meeting Matthew and connecting things about him she now thinks he is the one behind everything.

Matthew sees himself as a savior of sorts. He had a horrible childhood, to say the least, and we learn in time his past has a huge play in everything that has happened. He survived his upbringing and now is a loving husband to Mira but he has some dark secrets that he has kept to himself...that is until Hen came around. Ironically he isn't scared of Hen because he thinks they are kindred spirits of sorts, after seeing her dark and disturbing art and learning of her obsession with crime and murder. They soon strike up a sort of understanding of and he begins to tell her things he has never told anyone before. We learn why he does what he does, he tries to make excuses for his actions and no matter how he wants to validate these things they are criminal, disturbing and simply horrifying. To get into the mind of this man who can do such unbearable things and then lay in bed with his wife and teach kids the next day is so bizarre, how he can compartmentalize his actions is beyond words.

This book had me from the very beginning. We get to two souls who seem so different but in time we see how they connect in a way we never saw coming. I found it dark, creepy and at some points horrifying but all in a great way. The story was fascinating and with its twist and turns especially the plot twist towards the end there are some amazing jaw-dropping moments. I would call this my favorite Peter Swanson by far and I highly recommend this sinister of a novel.