Is this a sign her medication isn't working? Could what she saw be a coincidence? Her imagination? So Lloyd is skeptical when she claims that their new neighbour is a murderer. Hen has had manic episodes in the past, intense paranoia brought on by her bipolar disorder, which have led her to believe people have been trying to kill her. An object that stops her in her tracks and makes her feel faint.įrom then on, Hen is convinced that Matthew is a murderer. That is, until a tour of the house reveals an object that Hen recognizes. All is going well the four of them seem to get along and have chemistry. After just moving into a new home, Hen and her husband Lloyd attend a dinner party at Matthew and Mira's house. The book mostly switches between the perspectives of Hen, her new neighbour Matthew, and Matthew's wife, Mira.

And I was so deeply sucked into this one that I totally didn't see it coming. Instead, the book is at times a game of cat and mouse, at other times a psychological portrait of justice and abuse. There's no whodunnit because we know almost immediately who did it. Speaking of thrills, Before She Knew Him is a thriller, not a mystery, if that distinction is important to you. Well, that bodes well for me because I found this quite thrilling! Some seasoned Swanson readers are saying Before She Knew Him wasn’t as compelling as his other books. (Mar.'They had a secret, the two of them, and there was no better way to start a friendship than with a secret.' Surprising twists help keep the suspense high to the end. An uneasy relationship soon develops between Hen and Matt, whose traumatic childhood adds emotional heft to the narrative. However, Hen gets little support from Lloyd or the police because of her history of mental health problems and of falsely accusing others of murder. The next day, when she visits the Dolamores, the trophy is missing, reinforcing her suspicions.

Matt claims that he bought the trophy at a yard sale, but Hen, who’s become obsessed with Dustin’s case, suspects that Matt killed Dustin. At one point, Hen spots a fencing trophy on their hosts’ fireplace mantel that she believes was won by Dustin Miller, a college student who was murdered two years earlier and who attended the high school where Matt teaches history. At the start of this exceptional psychological thriller from Swanson ( All the Beautiful Lies), bipolar Hen “Henrietta” Mazur and her husband, Lloyd Harding, have dinner one night at the suburban Boston home of neighbors Mira and Matt Dolamore, with whom they’ve recently bonded over their mutual childlessness.

Before she knew him book review