Deception and duplicity is everywhere. Nothing is what it seems, and everybody has a secret. Malcolm Kershaw is the co-owner of the Old Devil’s Bookstore in Boston, which specialises in mysteries and thrillers. It’s a routine day until FBI agent Gwen Mulvey arrives at the door with questions for Malcolm about a blog post he wrote years ago titled ‘Eight Perfect Murders,’.; it described the ingenious methods and strategies used by killers in eight classic crime novels. Mulvey believes a serial killer is re-creating those ‘perfect’ murders, and wants Malcolm’s analysis.
The murders in question stem from Agatha Christie’s “The A.B.C. Murders;” A.A. Milne’s “The Red House Mystery;” Patricia Highsmith’s “Strangers on a Train;” James M. Cain’s “Double Indemnity;” Donna Tartt’s “The Secret History;” Ira Levin’s “Deathtrap;” Anthony Berkeley Cox’s “Malice Afterthought” and John D. MacDonald’s “The Drowner.” The author, through the character of Malcolm, evocatively summarises the details of these murders. There are plenty of spoilers certainly; but I was more enticed than discouraged to read the books on Malcolm’s list I haven’t yet read.
This is about unravelling the complex psyche of Malcolm; understanding how his tragic past affected his present. It's so entertaining and involving, a throwback to golden age mystery novels with a contemporary sheen, great for any crime or mystery lover!

A really clever, thoughtful and well executed storyline, which takes a plot based upon a number of old and new crime stories and weaves them in to a present day storyline.

It has actually led to me adding a number of the old stories on to my to be read list.

The plot is a little far fetched. It's about someone committing murders from several books which were on a list. It's a shame the book contains so many spoilers from those books, because I've only read one of them and have some of those books still on my to read list. There were some plot twist, but it didn't feel like a thriller. Some other books by this author like The Kind Worth Killing, is much better.

What a brilliant read! I loved this book for many reasons, the constant twists and turns and the endless supply of book recommendations! Because of this one book I have eight more books I want to read.

I have a love hate relationship with the protagonist, Malcolm Kershaw, is the co-owner of the Old Devils Bookstore, a bookstore that specializes in mystery books. I like he keep to myself personality, but I also wasn’t a fan of it. I did love his list of perfect murders, however, and will be reading the ones I haven’t already read soon.

I did really enjoy the final reveal of the “actual” murderer as much as I like the gradual revelations, we got about Malcolm himself. Rules for Perfect Murders had an interesting premise that honestly has a ‘could be a real-life situation’ feel to it. Basically, I love the writing style and would highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a fun and interesting mystery thriller.

Thank You to Peter Swanson and Faber, for the digital ARC provided through NetGalley in exchange for a candid review!

Bit of a slow burner but once it got going boom you’re in, great little storyline and characters, maybe a bit old fashioned in the writing but that might just be me???? I enjoyed it thoroughly though so regardless the writing style was fine, I’d defo recommend to others 😃

A very delightful read even if I found it a bit old fashioned to my taste. A clever plot and very well drawn characters will keep you intrigued all the way to the end.

Many thanks to Netgalley and Faber for giving me the opportunity to read this wonderful novel

Does the perfect murder really exist?

Years ago, Malcolm Kershaw wrote a list for a bookshop's blog, detailing the eight perfect murders from classic mystery books by the likes of Agatha Christie and Patricia Highsmith. Now, an FBI agent is in his office interrogating him about the list, trying to determine whether Malcolm or someone else has been using this list as inspiration for a series of seemingly unconnected deaths. Malcolm decides to help the FBI agent in her investigation, but he quickly becomes convinced the killer might be trying to get his attention, leading Malcolm to suspect he actually knows the person committing all these murders.

This book is presented as a memoir, and the main character is essentially talking to the reader, meaning that as a reader, you constantly have two questions in the back of your mind while you're reading: why is this Malcolm's memoir, and can I even trust what this man is telling me? The execution of this gimmick was just perfection. Unfortunately the ending was rather rushed, and I also feel like this book leans a bit too much on those eight classics at times, making it so that this book doesn't really manage to stand on its own. But I had a great time reading this, and I was surprised by some of the events that took place. I will definitely be checking out more from Peter Swanson soon.

Wow what a brilliant read!
Started off a bit of a slow burner,but then WHAM the tension began,slowly at first but with every chapter the author turned it up a little more,letting you in bit by bit to the real story of the events that happened.
Did not guess the 'bad guy' at all,completely floored me and the final twist.
Excellent.

I do not believe that I read a book like this one, the narration was spot on, the plot was engaging, full of mystery and BOOKS! Although I feel we only got to skim the surface of some of the characters, the motivations and desires were perfectly understood, the story beautifully written and captivating.

Peter Swanson is soon becoming one of my fave authors.

I received a copy of this book for an honest review from Netgalley.com.

With many of my favourite professional readers (Booktubers) desperately championing this book, I had to get my hands on it. However, I had difficulty locating a copy in Australia (I believe that I was looking for a copy on Audible.com.au at the time). I was extra excited to receive this book as it was a "wished" book and I felt as though the publishers came down with their magic fairy wands and granted it for me. Hooray!

I enjoyed the atmosphere that Swanson created at the "Old Devils" bookshop and wintery Boston scenery. I became fond of Kershaw, even with his "Joe Goldbergisms" and felt invested in him.
Even though, this book was extremely clever at the end, so clever that I had to reread the last few chapters to ensure that I was actually believing what I was reading. I love a good twist and Rules for Perfect Murders provided the goods.

I just believe that I am not the target audience for such a mystery. Other than the Agatha Cristie text, I was unfamiliar with the books praised and this frustrated me. I am a reader who prefers to enter most books, reasonably blind to what I am about to read. I have no excuse, just ignorant when wanting to enjoy a mystery.

I am looking forward to enjoying Swanson's extensive backlist and I hope other readers enjoy this book as much as my favourite reviewers do.

We meet Mal, a young, widowed owner of an independent bookshop, as he is contacted by an FBI agent, Gwen Mulvey, in relation to a potential series of murders that she is investigating. They all seem to have more than a few things in common with murders in famous whodunits and, more specifically, titles on a list that Mal had written on a blog years earlier entitled “Eight Perfect Murders”. Mal joins Gwen in digging deeper into these murders, as a kind of “independent expert” on the list’s murder mysteries and the (almost) unsolvable murders they contain. As Mal and Gwen investigate further it becomes clear that the killer is connected in some way to Mal, but why these murders are happening, and how deep Mal’s connection goes, is the real mystery...

I really enjoyed this book. I love most of the titles on Mal’s list and think it probably helps if the reader knows their basic plots. The titles on Mal’s list I didn’t have are now on my ever-growing “to read” pile, and I liked that I was able to discover new books by reading this one. The pacing was really good, and licked along nicely as the author revealed twist after twist. It was a very clever plot and, while I didn’t really find myself drawn to any particular character, I would certainly read more of this author’s work.

My thanks to the author, NetGalley, and the publisher for the arc to review.

This book captured my attention as it talked about a list of murders being committed that were based on murders that happened in books, other than that I wasn't sure what the book was about. The book starts with us meeting Malcolm Kershaw who owns a second-hand bookshop and he meets one morning an FBI agent. She has come across some murder cases which seem to match a booklist he wrote years ago on a book blog he started for the second-hand bookshop back when he was just a shop assistant. It seems that someone is going through his list of perfect murder scenarios and killing them starting with the ABC Killer. This has our main character, Malcolm, thinking back 5 years ago when he committed his murder in a case that was based on Strangers on a Train after meeting someone on the dark web. He has lived with this dark secret and now with the FBI poking around in his life, he starts to become a bit nervous about it coming back to him and so he contacts an ex-cop friend of his to do some digging of his own. As the book goes on, we notice that the killings are connected to the people that he knew through the bookshop or his personal life - through his wife who also died years ago. Is the killer someone close to Malcolm or is someone wanting to set him up to take the fall or option 3 - is this just some big coincidence? Find out in Rules for Perfect Murders by Peter Swanson. As this was a brit lit UK mystery, it is told at a slower pace which they are well-known for rather than the fast American-paced murder mysteries. However, if you are like me and love books and crime - you will find yourself in a comfort zone with Rules for Perfect Murders.

Thank you netgalley, the publisher and author.
I usually enjoy Peter Swanson books but I somehow could not get into this one.
Thank you

Having read one of Peter Swanson’s novels previously and loving it, I was looking forward to reading this one.

The premise of the novel was excellent and was excited to see how it would pan out. Unfortunately, this book just didn’t live up to the expectations and for me it wasn’t as enjoyable as I hoped.

I wasn’t a fan of the writing style (personal preference) and felt I couldn’t connect with the main character at all. I had no sympathy nor anger for him, he just felt somewhat bland throughout the book. Perhaps this was done on purpose but I’m more used to being able to connect with the main character, whether it in a positive or negative way.

The idea of the book was good and I loved the references to old crime thriller books! But I felt that the actual killings in this book were rushed and that felt wrong to me.

Overall I wanted to keep reading to see what would happen and I hoped things would get better as the book went on, but I just found it rather dull and lacking in excitement or suspense.

Looooved all the references to crime fiction classics! Although it may be bit annoying if you had not read the books it makes reference to, as it would spoil the mystery solving for you! Great concept and great execution!

Thank you Netgalley. I discovered Peter Swanson with his very first book, I love him. It is sad to say but I could not read this one. Sorry but not interested.

This book was different to what I was expecting but I really enjoyed it.

There were lots of twists and turns and I enjoyed the narrator - especially the end.

It was a little obvious who had done it but I enjoyed it never the less and found that I wanted to stay reading it even until late which is always a sign of a good book.

There were times when it was fairly fantastical the fbi simply would not disclose so much information but overall I really enjoyed the premise.

4 out of 5 stars. Thank you for the arc.

I started off really enjoying this book. However towards the end I started to dislike it. I really liked the storyline and I think it’s a very clever and unique idea. I liked the writing style and would like to read some more of Peter Swanson’s books. However, the first thing that I didn’t like is that halfway through the book, the wrong name was written for a character. Nicholas all of a sudden became Scott, and this one time mistake did annoy me. Although it was an ARC copy that I was reading, it still really threw me off as there’s no character in this book called Scott. It’s a pretty big error so that really put me off. I also found it really hard to like Malcolm as a character. It really annoyed me how completely unbothered and blasé he was about murder. I found his attitude towards things very odd so struggled to connect with him as a character. I think the ending could have had more action, as it seemed to be over very quickly. However I was definitely surprised by the twist and I hadn’t predicted it. I would like to read some more of Peter Swanson’s books as I’ve heard great things about his writing, but unfortunately I didn’t love this one as much as I was hoping to.

‘The thing is, and maybe I’m biased by all those years I’ve spent in fictional realms built on deceit, I don’t trust narrators any more than I trust the actual people in my life.’

As some of you may know I’m a total bibliophile and I also love reading crime thrillers, so Rules for Perfect Murders/Eight Perfect Murders (I think it’s a UK/USA difference) sounded right up my street! The book focuses on 8 classic crime thrillers such as Ira Levin’s Death Trap and A. A. Milne's Red House Mystery. I was at a slight disadvantage here as I was only actually familiar with two of them: Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders and Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train. The other ones do have their plots spelt out a number of times throughout the book though, so that doesn’t matter so much although perhaps best to avoid if you don’t want a few spoilers along the way!

Rules for Perfect Murders has one of the best uses of an unreliable narrator that I have read. I had started off at about 20% thinking smugly that I knew what the big twist would be at the end only for the author to show his hand early and then the twists just kept coming. It gets to the point where you honestly are unsure what is true or not which was done in a perfect way – not too frustrating and just enough of a reveal each time to keep you off balance. I was a little sad to see that Goodreads has this listed as ‘Malcolm Kershaw #1’ as I don’t think a sequel is needed but the author has clarified that this is a mistake so don’t be fooled – it’s a great standalone story.

My main problem with this book was that I actually found it quite unrealistic that even an FBI agent would make a link between these crimes and the plots of the stories. These are not straight up copycat killings and a few of the links are tenuous at best. For example, in the ABC murders the victims are chosen for having alliterated names that match the place they are killed in and the order descends through the alphabet (eg: Alice Ascher killed in Andover then Betty Barnard killed in Bexhill etc). The linked crime in this book however, is that the killer is killing victims with names that link to birds (Jay, Robin etc) and not even in alphabetical order. The other crimes are also oddly linked – I would have perhaps found it more realistic if the author had kept the crimes linked more faithfully to the books.

Overall, Rules for Perfect Murders is a perfect read for crime thriller fans and a great homage to the novels that kick-started the popularity in the genre. The narrative techniques displayed are clever and keep you guessing all the way to the end and beyond. Thank you to NetGalley & Faber & Faber for granting my wish and allowing me to read this ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Well I was VERY glad I'd read all the mystery/crime books referred to in this book because otherwise I would either have been bored, or irritated by spoilers. If you love the crime genre and you've read the books referenced, then this is a fun way of presenting a detective novel. I liked it.