Malcolm Kershaw is a bookseller who owns a mystery bookshop in Boston. A few years ago, he wrote a blog post called “Eight Perfect Murders” in which he listed eight mysteries that he thought were impossible to solve. But now someone is killing people based on those books. And this killer seems to know Malcolm. Malcolm has secrets he would rather not reveal, so he sets out to find the killer. This is a gripping novel. I love the idea of the mystery bookshop, that could be my dream. The book is full of references to other crime novels, new readings in perspective. And the plot is very intricate, I found it difficult to guess who the killer was. The ending is perhaps a little rushed, too much information in very few pages, and I could have imagined a final twist at the end, but it was a real pleasure to read this book.
“A few days after the weekend, Claire woke me up in the middle of the night and asked me, “Why do you love me?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I just do.”
“You must have reasons.”
“If I had reasons to love you, then there’d be reasons for me to not love you.”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. I’m tired.”
“No, tell me, I’m curious.”
“Okay. So if I loved you because you’re beautiful, then that would mean I wouldn’t love you anymore if you had some kind of accident that disfigured your face-“
“Or simply grew old.”
“Right, or grew old. And if I loved you because you’re a good person, then that would mean I would stop loving you if you did something bad. And that wouldn’t happen.”
“You’re way too good for me,” she said, but she laughed.
“What do you love about me?” I said.
“Your youthful good looks,” she said, laughing some more. “Actually, I love you because you’re an old soul in a young man.”
“And one day I’ll be an old soul in an old man.”
“I can’t wait,” she said.”
Listened to as an audiobook