The Perfect Murder is one of this years Quick Read titles - Quick Reads is a collaboration between bestselling writers, leading publishers, supermarkets, bookshops, libraries, government departments, the Arts Council, BBC RaW, World Book Day, National Book Tokens and more.
The books are slim - I guess between 20 and 30,000 words and are designed to be quick, no nonsense reads. A Perfect Murder is just that.
Victor Smiley is a cautious man, he plans each step of his day out in meticulous detail, nothing is done on the spur of the moment. For the last few years he has been planning on murdering his wife, Joan. And now he is ready to put his plan into action. But unknown to Victor his wife has also been planning to murder him and she, too, is ready to commit the perfect murder.
As expected the book moves along at a zipy pace - I read it cover to cover in a couple of hours. It's a twisty turning road to the final page and several times, when I thought I'd figured out how it would all end, the author pulled the rug out from under my feet. In some ways, the theme perhaps, the book reminded me of some of Ruth Rendell's darker non-Wexford stuff. It's more black comedy than anything else, with characters as real as the people next door. All in all A Perfect Murder is a perfect read.
Excellent - Peter James demonstrates that you don't need a billion, squillion, trillion, willion words to tell a good story. Well worth picking up.
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