When FBI agent Jessica Winslow first got the list, she didn’t know what it was. It was just a list of nine names that had been sent to her from New York City, nothing else in the envelope. Just a list of nine names. Her name was at the bottom, but they were in alphabetical order. However, as an FBI agent, she had resources to help her. She sent the letter and envelope to the lab to be tested, and she could research the other names. While she didn’t know any of the other people on the list, she did find one name to sound familiar, like it was a friend of her father’s from way back. Or maybe not. She couldn’t remember for sure.
When one of the other people on the list is murdered, that’s when she is officially taken off the case. Other agents are put in charge of tracking down the people on the list. Matthew Beaumont, the suburban father in Massachusetts. Ethan Dart, the singer/songwriter in Austin, Texas. Caroline Geddes, the English professor at the University of Michigan. And five others, plus Jessica.
The first one on the list to die was Frank Hopkins, who owned a rundown hotel in Maine. It had been his parents’ hotel, the Windwood Resort, and when they died he took it over. When he was a kid, back in the 1950s, families would come for a month in the summer, the adults enjoying the peace and quiet, the kids running around on the beach and playing games with the other kids who were staying there. Now, no one can afford to take off an entire month, and while he’s been able to keep the Wildwood open all those years, it had been a long time since it had been thriving.
The local police had found Frank on the beach, drowned in a tide pool. He had his list gripped in his fist, along with the envelope it had come in, but it hadn’t come in the mail. There was no stamp, no postmark. It had been left there for him to discover right before his death.
Jessica feels in her gut that it’s not a random list, that there is a reason those people have been chosen. But will she and her fellow FBI agents figure out what that reason is before they all end up dead?
Nine Lives is the latest from suspense master Peter Swanson. A reimagining of Agatha Christie’s And Then There Were None, this is a modern retelling of the story of a murder list, with those involved trying to figure out who the people on the list are and why they were included.
This compelling story has an interesting variety of characters, a compelling plot, and that twist at the end that makes you want to hit your head and yell, “Of course! I didn’t even think of that!” It was quite the magic trick for me, sucking me in to these characters’ lives while setting me up for the kill (so to speak). I thought Nine Lives was beautifully written, and the perfect read for fans of Dame Christie and her smart, taut mysteries.
Egalleys for Nine Lives were provided by William Morrow through NetGalley, with many thanks.
