The Crime Warp

I’m new to Peter Swanson and so pleased I tried this book as the story is simply fabulous.   Ted Severson is intelligent, wealth and unhappy, drowning his sorrows in an airport bar.   He’s approached by Lily Kintner, beautiful, enigmatic and empathetic enough to get Severson to open up about his troubles.   Ted’s wife Miranda is beautiful and sophisticated but unfaithful with Brad, the builder who is creating Miranda’s dream home, funded of course by Ted’s bulging bank balance.   Ted is angry at this betrayal but doesn’t know what to do, although after a few more cocktails the answer is clear.   He wants to kill Miranda.   Lily turns out not just to be a good listener, but practical too, offering to help Ted kill his wife Miranda.  The novel also tells the backstory of the main characters, bringing to life Ted, Miranda and Lily herself.   As the story developed I was quite disturbed by Lily, particularly her first cold and calculated murder,...

Many thanks to the delightful Elizabeth Haynes for contributing this article to Crimewarp.  Elizabeth is the brilliant author of several  best-selling psychological thrillers such as:- What stands out for me in Elizabeth's novels are the incredibly strong, unique and often quirky characters which invariably keep me hooked throughout the dark plots.  I asked Elizabeth if she would pen us a piece on how she went about developing these characters and she very graciously obliged. This is Elizabeth's article:- ----------<>---------- Author- Elizabeth Haynes I am of the opinion that characters need to evolve quite happily by themselves – you just give them a task or two to get things started, and after a week or so of writing they take over and start to do unexpected things. Once you believe that your characters are real people (it’s something you have to go with, both as a writer and, to be fair, if you’re going to read this blog post), then the writing ...