"Before She Knew Him"

"Before She Knew Him"
Written by Peter Swanson
Review written by Diana Iozzia




"Before She Knew Him" is a homage to many wonderful types of mysteries: the who-dun-its, the "neighbor next door"s, the true crime fictions, and more. This book is especially familiar and rings home to my love of "The Twilight Zone" and Alfred Hitchcock's creations. At a young age, I always enjoyed Alfred Hitchcock's bomb rule: introduce a bomb strapped to the underside of a table, but only let the audience know. This creates a deep level of suspense, when the audience has an acute knowledge of the mystery, but we have characters completely in the dark. This technique is apparent in "Before She Knew Him".

This book is not described and billed well, in my opinion. We are told about our main characters, Hen and Matthew. Hen and her husband live next to Matthew and Mira. We know from the blurb and description in every press release and on the back of the book, that Hen believes that Matthew could be a murderer. In chapter two, we find out that Matthew is a murderer. And we are in on this massive secret. This is a fantastic thriller and storytelling technique, to allow us to know the innermost workings of Matthew's mind but also allows us to worry about Hen. If we did not know Matthew is a killer, we would be wondering about Hen's mental state but her sanity alone. When we understand that she is in a deep threat of danger, we wonder how dark and deep this cat and mouse / bomb underneath the table game will go.

I thoroughly enjoyed the first three quarters of this book. I loved the witty and very clever dialogue. This is one of those thrillers that it seems every specific line was curated and carefully written to have two meanings. This is one of those thrillers that you need to read again. We are reading through characters' perspectives that we should not take at face value, but should we ever do that with thrillers? We beg and ask the questions: How much do you really know about someone? Yes, someone could be suspicious, but what do you do when it could put yourself in danger? How much revenge could a person take, before the point of no return?

There are aspects about this book that I dislike, but if I explained them fully, they would ruin the book. I will say that I did not enjoy the twist ending. A character was revealed in a way that made us completely question them and another character as well. This type of twist works in some books, but I do not feel that it worked in this one. I think it was a poor representation of mental health and trauma. I would still read this book, and I am very excited to read more books by Peter Swanson, however, the reveal and the climax were well, anti-climactic.

I do recommend this book, and I hope those who do read it enjoy it. There is just that one plot twist trope that I really dislike in books, and when books have it, the writer disappoints me.


I received a free advanced edition of this book in exchange for reading and reviewing purposes. Thank you to the publishing house, William Morrow, for the opportunity.