Kill For Me Kill For You
THE INSTANT TOP FIVE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER
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4.5 • 6 Ratings
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- $15.99
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- $15.99
Publisher Description
***THE INSTANT TOP FIVE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER***
SHE WILL KILL YOUR WORST ENEMY. ALL YOU HAVE TO DO IS KILL HERS.
'Dazzling' SUNDAY TIMES Best Thriller Books of 2023
'Steve Cavanagh's twists hit you between the eyes. You never see them coming' ANTHONY HOROWITZ
'Unputdownable...one of the most ingenious thrillers I've read in a long time.' ALEX MICHAELIDES
'Smart, stylish and fearless - the ultimate treat for crime fiction fans' JANICE HALLETT
One dark evening in New York City, two strangers meet by chance.
Over drinks, Amanda and Wendy realise they have so much in common.
They both feel alone. They both drink alone.
And they both desperately want revenge against the two men who destroyed their families.
Together, they have the perfect plan.
If you kill for me, I'll kill for you...
'An absolute humdinger of a thriller - fiendishly clever and totally compelling.' TM LOGAN
'This guy is the real deal. Trust me' LEE CHILD
'Steve Cavanagh writes the best hooks in the business' MICK HERRON
'One of my very favourite authors, but even by his high standards this is an extraordinary book. Absolutely recommended.' M. W. CRAVEN
'A superb thriller...full of twists I never saw coming' ALEX NORTH
'The real magic is in Steve Cavanagh's hypnotic storytelling power' SUNDAY EXPRESS
'Cavanagh is a genius.' EVENING STANDARD
Top Five Bestseller in the Sunday Times, August 2023.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Cavanagh (the Eddie Flynn series) keeps readers on their toes in this tense and tricky revenge thriller about grieving women in New York City. Amanda White's stalking of Wallace Crone, a well-connected sex offender she is sure has gotten off the hook for assaulting and murdering her six year-old-daughter and driving her husband to suicide, lands her a restraining order and a mandate to attend a grief support group on the Upper West Side. Drunken conversations with fellow group member Wendy lead the pair to concoct a Strangers on a Train–style pact in which Wendy will kill Crone and Amanda will kill the man Wendy claims raped and murdered her daughter three years earlier. In a parallel narrative, 39-year-old Manhattan real estate agent Ruth Gelman survives a home invasion during which she's stabbed multiple times. Unable to give the NYPD more than a thin description of her attacker, she's left dependent on her husband, Scott, for her safety, and mired in a state of near-constant paranoia. The initial link between the stories is Det. Andrew Farrow (nicknamed St. Jude for his habit of pursuing hopeless cases), but as the plot gathers steam, the overlaps become more and more substantial and startling. Cavanagh seeds the narrative with a series of explosive, game-changing reveals that, combined with an uncommon attunement to the central characters' emotional arcs, make for a wild, deliciously satisfying ride. Even seasoned genre fans will find themselves white-knuckling this roller coaster.
Customer Reviews
Stranger danger
3.5 stars
The author (real name Steve Mearns) is an Irish civil rights lawyer turned best-selling writer of thrillers, mostly involving a New York conman turned attorney named Eddie Flynn, a not-so-subtle piss take by Mr Cavanagh. This, his latest title, is standalone.
The setting is the Big Apple. Amanda’s young daughter gets abducted from a park, raped and murdered. Hubby Luis, who was supposed to be watching her but turned away for just a minute, is overcome with grief and kills himself. The cops have a suspect, but he’s rich and powerful and can afford good lawyers, or at least his father can. Our gal stalks him, gets slapped with a restraining order, which she violates, then a lawsuit for an amount she’ll never be able to pay because she’s lost her job as well as her life as she knew it. At the group therapy sessions the judge mandates, she meets a woman who has also suffered great personal loss and wants revenge too. They bond over a large number of drinks. One thing leads to another. The new friend asks whether Amanda’s seen the movie ‘Strangers On A Train’ and suggests they do something similar.
Meanwhile, Ruth is late thirties realtor, married to lawyer Scott, and hoping to get pregnant when a dude breaks in and stabs her multiple times. She lives but won’t be able to have kids, and is too anxious to return home. Hubby, who feels guilty because he was out on the beers with his mates the night she was attacked, does his best to support her. He finally gets her out of the hotel room to a restaurant, where she sees… the guy who attacked her. He’s come to finish her off! She regresses. Hubby steps up, follows the guy, and kills him, as you would. They get out of town. She’s happy for the first time in months. Now it’s hubby’s turn to be anxious, especially he learns the guy wifey told him assaulted her was actually in Hawaii that night. Wifey comes over all nervy again. Hubby throws himself out of window of AirB&B, an automatic one-star rating, I believe.
Read the book if you want to know how the author ties these plot lines together, or to check whether you guessed right. He plugs in plenty more twists to keep you guessing.
The narrative unfolds in alternating chapters from the POVs of the two female protagonists, interspersed with several from the main investigating cop. Fans of blood and guts will not be disappointed. The writing is good, but the author flagged the denouement heavily. The late twists lacked impact as a result IMO.