The Serial Killer's Wife [Kindle Edition]

What would you do to save your child? Clearly Elizabeth will do anything necessary. She turns out to be a character that is strong enough to do what it takes, while still retaining her humanity and compassion. She manages to fight through loosing everything and rebuilding a life for herself and her son only to be attacked just when she thinks she is safe. Even with that, she doesn't break down and give up, but continues on through more losses than anyone should be expected to deal with and betrayal to succeed in doing the right thing. Leaves me hoping 2 things, that if needed I could be that strong, and that I never need to be that strong.
An excellent story from a writer that is still getting even better in his craft (I will love to see where he is in 2 years) and a twist that caught me off guard. Good job!

If you dig Blake Crouch's Andrew Z. Thomas series of novels or just like a kick-butt adrenaline rush, you'll love this book. Robert Swartwood's writing is as sharp as switchblade. A real summer suspense thriller!

Okay. I admit it. I was one of those high school teenagers who liked to read true crime fiction and was obsessed with stories about serial killers. I think I even owned a mass market Encyclopedia of Serial Killers at one time. But not anymore!

But when I came across Robert Swartwood's The Serial Killer's Wife over at GoodReads and read the blurb, discovering it was a fictional story told from the perspective of a serial killer's wife, I was intrigued. So, I emailed Mr. Swartwood and asked if he'd be interested in sending me a copy for review, which he gladly provided.

Elizabeth Piccioni's husband is a convicted serial killer. Five years ago during his trial, she decided to run away with her newborn son, change their names, and start a new life. Within just pages of being introduced, Elizabeth receives a call that her son is being held hostage. Her horrible past, which she thought she had escaped, suddenly comes back to haunt her.

Elizabeth must take an unwanted trip down memory lane to seek out what the kidnapper wants - her husband's trophies from the murders he committed - if she wants her son back. And the first stop where the kidnapper sends her is the home of a child molester who recently took up residence right in her own neighborhood.

From there, Swartwood creates a grapevine of secondary characters that both help and hinder Elizabeth during her search, which must be completed in one hundred hours or her son will die. We meet Todd, the man she's dating now, her brother Jim, her husband's old lawyer, a bar owner that helped Elizabeth with a job a long time ago, the bar owner's bodyguards, the FBI agent that arrested her husband, the agent's partner/love interest, an old friend now living in Elizabeth's old house, an old girlfriend of Elizabeth's and her new spouse, the fame-crazed widower of one of the women who her husband killed, and Elizabeth's husband himself! And one of them is the kidnapper that is stringing Elizabeth along!

For me, the story got off to a great start. I was along for the ride as Elizabeth and Todd jump in the car and head back to her old hometown. Unfortunately, the book tends to lose steam at times when a secondary character is introduced and their backstory is revealed as the reader learns how Elizabeth knows them and why she is seeking them out.

Swartwood drives the story with tight dialogue and enough "clue revealing" to keep you guessing and to keep you wanting to know more. I was racing through the story to discover who the bad guy was and how the story would end, which by the way was a conclusion I never saw coming. I wasn't fooled by the more obvious direction he was leading you in, but I was completely caught off guard when the bad guy was finally revealed!

Overall, I thought this was a fun, fast, and refreshing read. The book's cover leads you to believe it could be a hardboiled graphic mystery, but it is more of a suspenseful race against time with a classic "who-dun-it" feel. Well done! I look forward to reading more from Mr. Swartwood and already have his book, The Calling, lined up.