Excerpt from Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The thing about John Dickson Carr is that I just can't get into those books, even though the commenter was probably right in calling out their absence. Carr specialized in locked-room murder mysteries, impossible crimes. It seems ridiculous now but at the time I was bothered by the opinion, probably because I agreed with it to a certain degree. I even considered a follow-up post—maybe something like "Eight More Perfect Murders." Instead, my next post was a list of my favorite mystery novels from the previous year, and I wrote the entire thing in about an hour. I also figured out how to link the titles of the books to our online store, and, for that, John was extremely grateful. "We're just trying to sell books here, Mal," he'd said. "Not trying to start arguments."

Excerpted from Eight Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson. Copyright © 2020 by Peter Swanson. Excerpted by permission of William Morrow. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.