Thanks to William Morrow for the advanced copy in exchange for a review.

A murder mystery filled with bookish references and starring a bookstore owner? Sounds like a great premise! In execution, it wasn't always great but it was a twisty, fun novel that I read in a single day.

I really liked the bookstore setting and the premise of a copycat killer who replicated famous murders from books. Overall, the mystery book conceit was cool, particularly in the way it plays a role through to the very end. A few of the twists kept me guessing (though I did figure out the killer early on, despite the multiple red herrings). I don't think of it as a fast-paced novel, except the last half which I sped through, wanting to know how all the different pieces of information would come together. Swanson writes a good unreliable narrator (though at one point the narrator breaks the 4th fall and brings up the 'unreliable narrator' trope which was a bit...much for me) and this book was no exception.

However, I did at times get bogged down by ALL the references to mystery novels. They seem to come a mile a minute, which might be fun if you are an aficionado, but I was having a hard enough time just keeping the 8 Books in the title straight. Also be warned that the book spoils a lot of mystery novels; yes, most of these have been out there for a long time, but there are spoiler alerts galore throughout the book. The characters are all a bit flat and there are SO DARN MANY of them that it was at times hard to keep them all straight. Finally, I found Swanson's writing to be repetitive at times and a bit heavy-handed.

That all said, it was an enjoyable read. Swanson is reliable for a good, easy mystery read that will be sure to delight fans of his work and of the mystery genre more generally.

TW: Murder (duh, though never too graphic); child molestation; mentions of rape

3.5 stars, rounded up