Nine Lives
A Novel
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3.7 • 41 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
“[A] smartly entertaining reimagining of Agatha Christie’s classic And Then There Were None… Swanson cunningly plays with readers’ heads as we hope so-and-so gets it next.”— Washington Post
If you’re on the list, someone wants you dead.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Eight Perfect Murders comes the heart-pounding story of nine strangers who receive a cryptic list with their names on it—and then begin to die in highly unusual circumstances.
Nine strangers receive a list with their names on it in the mail. Nothing else, just a list of names on a single sheet of paper. None of the nine people know or have ever met the others on the list. They dismiss it as junk mail, a fluke—until very, very bad things begin happening to people on the list.
First, a well-liked old man is drowned on a beach in the small town of Kennewick, Maine. Then, a father is shot in the back while running through his quiet neighborhood in suburban Massachusetts. A frightening pattern is emerging, but what do these nine people have in common? Their professions range from oncology nurse to aspiring actor, and they’re located all over the country. So why are they all on the list, and who sent it?
FBI agent Jessica Winslow, who is on the list herself, is determined to find out. Could there be some dark secret that binds them all together? Or is this the work of a murderous madman? As the mysterious sender stalks these nine strangers, they find themselves constantly looking over their shoulders, wondering who will be crossed off next…
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Swanson (Every Vow You Break) neatly riffs on Agatha Christie's classic And Then There Were None in this taut thriller. Nine Americans from across the country—a stressed suburban father, an aspiring actor, a singer-songwriter, a resort owner, a retired businessman, a rich man's mistress, an English professor, an oncology nurse, and FBI agent Jessica Winslow—each receives an envelope in the mail from an unknown sender containing only an identical list of nine names, including their own. The recipients, who don't recognize the other names on the list, vary in their initial reactions; some are disturbed, while others barely pay attention to it. Then someone drowns one of the nine. Winslow, a federal investigator in Albany, N.Y., begins to probe whether the eight others, who have no apparent connections to one another, are all targets of a killer. Winslow's mission becomes more urgent when another on the list is gunned down. Swanson makes the plotline plausible, despite radically transforming the setting from Christie's isolated island with its closed circle of suspects, to the entire continental U.S. This is a well-crafted page-turner.
Customer Reviews
Aggravating
One of the worst books I’ve read in a very long time. No mystery. No plot twists. Just boring character descriptions with no meaning or contribution to the plot. Yawn. Couldn’t wait for it to be over.