Echoes of Agatha Christie reverberate through Nine Lives as Peter Swanson (Every Vow You Break; Eight Perfect Murders), in his eighth novel, brings a fresh, contemporary approach to the classic And Then There Were None.
As the title suggests, nine characters--strangers to each other and hailing from different parts of the country--inhabit the brisk plot that begins on a high note and maintains that standard through the various, plausible twists. Despite the large cast of characters, Swanson deftly delves into each personality, investing readers in their backstories. Each death is expected, yet still surprising.
Each of them--a stressed father, an aspiring actor and stalker, a singer-songwriter, a resort owner, a retired businessman, a wealthy man's mistress, an English professor and an oncology nurse--receives an envelope containing an identical list of nine names, including their own. There's no return address to hint at the sender. Jessica Winslow, an FBI agent in Albany, N.Y., is also listed. She is the first to notice when someone on this list is murdered, and she tries to track down the others across the country--the names are not that unusual--and discover the link. But Winslow's investigation stalls--some of the people have just tossed out the list while others refuse to return a call from the FBI.
Swanson takes his cue from Christie regarding plot development, but his intense storytelling energizes Nine Lives. Swanson delivers a surprising but believable resolution that ties together all the characters in this solid thriller. --Oline H. Cogdill, freelance reviewer