The Serial Killer's Wife [Kindle Edition]

Robert Swartwood (Author), Blake Crouch (Foreword)

Book Description

A USA TODAY Bestseller

Five years ago Elizabeth Piccioni's husband was arrested for being a serial killer. Her life suddenly turned upside down, she did what she thought was best for her newborn baby: she took her son and ran away to start a new life.

Now, living in a quiet part of the Midwest with a new identity, Elizabeth is ready to start over. But one day she receives a phone call from a person calling himself Cain. Cain somehow knows about her past life. He has abducted her son, and if Elizabeth wants to save him she must retrieve her husband's trophies -- the fingers he cut off each of his victims.

With a deadline of one hundred hours, Elizabeth has no choice but to return to the life she once fled, where she will soon realize that everything she thought she knew is a lie, and what's more shocking than Cain's identity is the truth about her husband.

The Serial Killer's Wife is a 80,000-word thriller in the vein of Jeffery Deaver, John Sanford, and Thomas Harris. It includes a special foreword by Blake Crouch.

Praise for The Serial Killer's Wife:

"This is a scary, thrilling, page-turning, race-against-the-clock novel if ever there was one, with a true shocker of an ending. Miss this one at your own peril." -- Blake Crouch 

"An explosive summer thriller. Robert Swartwood is a sharp writer, his prose lean and mean as a razor blade. He notches up the tension from chapter to chapter like a master storyteller, keeping you reading long into the night." -- The Man Eating Bookworm

About the Author

Robert Swartwood is the USA TODAY bestselling author of The Serial Killer's Wife, The Calling, Man of Wax, and several other novels. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, The Daily Beast, Wigleaf, and PANK. He created the term "hint fiction" and is the editor of Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer. Visit him online at robertswartwood.com.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"This is a scary, thrilling, page-turning, race-against-the-clock novel if ever there was one, with a true shocker of an ending. Miss this one at your own peril."

--Blake Crouch, author of Run and Desert Places

"An explosive summer thriller. Robert Swartwood is a sharp writer, his prose lean and mean as a razor blade. He notches up the tension from chapter to chapter like a master storyteller, keeping you reading long into the night."

--The Man Eating Bookworm

Product Details

• File Size: 639 KB
• Print Length: 310 pages
• Page Numbers Source ISBN: 1463664079
• Simultaneous Device Usage: Unlimited
• Publisher: RMS Press (June 12, 2011)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
• Language: English
• ASIN: B0055O01E6
• Text-to-Speech: Enabled
• X-Ray: Enabled
• Lending: Enabled
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,034 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Just read it, it's a d***** good book! June 18, 2011

By A.M Donovan

Format:Kindle Edition

What would you do to save your child? Clearly Elizabeth will do anything necessary. She turns out to be a character that is strong enough to do what it takes, while still retaining her humanity and compassion. She manages to fight through loosing everything and rebuilding a life for herself and her son only to be attacked just when she thinks she is safe. Even with that, she doesn't break down and give up, but continues on through more losses than anyone should be expected to deal with and betrayal to succeed in doing the right thing. Leaves me hoping 2 things, that if needed I could be that strong, and that I never need to be that strong.
An excellent story from a writer that is still getting even better in his craft (I will love to see where he is in 2 years) and a twist that caught me off guard. Good job!

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Killer Book! July 15, 2011

By Peter Andrew Leonard

Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase

If you dig Blake Crouch's Andrew Z. Thomas series of novels or just like a kick-butt adrenaline rush, you'll love this book. Robert Swartwood's writing is as sharp as switchblade. A real summer suspense thriller!

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars The Serial Killer's Wife January 5, 2012

By Shannon L. Yarbrough VINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

Okay. I admit it. I was one of those high school teenagers who liked to read true crime fiction and was obsessed with stories about serial killers. I think I even owned a mass market Encyclopedia of Serial Killers at one time. But not anymore!

But when I came across Robert Swartwood's The Serial Killer's Wife over at GoodReads and read the blurb, discovering it was a fictional story told from the perspective of a serial killer's wife, I was intrigued. So, I emailed Mr. Swartwood and asked if he'd be interested in sending me a copy for review, which he gladly provided.

Elizabeth Piccioni's husband is a convicted serial killer. Five years ago during his trial, she decided to run away with her newborn son, change their names, and start a new life. Within just pages of being introduced, Elizabeth receives a call that her son is being held hostage. Her horrible past, which she thought she had escaped, suddenly comes back to haunt her.

Elizabeth must take an unwanted trip down memory lane to seek out what the kidnapper wants - her husband's trophies from the murders he committed - if she wants her son back. And the first stop where the kidnapper sends her is the home of a child molester who recently took up residence right in her own neighborhood.

From there, Swartwood creates a grapevine of secondary characters that both help and hinder Elizabeth during her search, which must be completed in one hundred hours or her son will die. We meet Todd, the man she's dating now, her brother Jim, her husband's old lawyer, a bar owner that helped Elizabeth with a job a long time ago, the bar owner's bodyguards, the FBI agent that arrested her husband, the agent's partner/love interest, an old friend now living in Elizabeth's old house, an old girlfriend of Elizabeth's and her new spouse, the fame-crazed widower of one of the women who her husband killed, and Elizabeth's husband himself! And one of them is the kidnapper that is stringing Elizabeth along!

For me, the story got off to a great start. I was along for the ride as Elizabeth and Todd jump in the car and head back to her old hometown. Unfortunately, the book tends to lose steam at times when a secondary character is introduced and their backstory is revealed as the reader learns how Elizabeth knows them and why she is seeking them out.

Swartwood drives the story with tight dialogue and enough "clue revealing" to keep you guessing and to keep you wanting to know more. I was racing through the story to discover who the bad guy was and how the story would end, which by the way was a conclusion I never saw coming. I wasn't fooled by the more obvious direction he was leading you in, but I was completely caught off guard when the bad guy was finally revealed!

Overall, I thought this was a fun, fast, and refreshing read. The book's cover leads you to believe it could be a hardboiled graphic mystery, but it is more of a suspenseful race against time with a classic "who-dun-it" feel. Well done! I look forward to reading more from Mr. Swartwood and already have his book, The Calling, lined up.

More About the Author

Robert Swartwood is the USA TODAY bestselling author of The Serial Killer's Wife, The Calling, Man of Wax, and several other novels. His work has appeared in The Los Angeles Review, The Daily Beast, Chizine, Space and Time, Postscripts, and PANK. He created the term "hint fiction" and is the editor of Hint Fiction: An Anthology of Stories in 25 Words or Fewer. He lives with his wife in Pennsylvania. Visit him at www.robertswartwood.com.

Amazon Author Rankbeta 

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#72 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror

#72 in Kindle eBooks > Literature & Fiction > Horror