Faber nets Swanson's 'ingenious' murder mystery

Peter Swanson's latest "ingenious" murder mystery Nine Lives has been scooped by Faber and will publish next spring.

Angus Cargill bought UK & Commonwealth rights, excluding Canada, from Caspian Dennis at Abner Stein. The title is slated for publication in hardback, e-book and audio on 3rd March 2022.  A special edition is to be released by Waterstones, featuring an exclusive short story. 

The blurb reads: "If you’re on the list you’re marked for death. The envelope is unremarkable. There is no return address. It contains a single, folded, sheet of white paper. The envelope drops through the mail slot like any other piece of post. But for the nine complete strangers who receive it – each of them recognising just one name, their own, on the enclosed list – it will be the most life altering letter they ever receive. It could also be the last as, one by one, they start to meet their end. But why?"

Cargill said: "I am so excited about Nine Lives, with its ingenious set-up, a death-list mystery which is just a dream book from this fast-emerging genre master. I can't wait for people to get caught up in its dark guessing game."

Two of Swanson’s previous novels have been Richard and Judy Book Club picks, most recently 2020's Rules For Perfect Murders (Faber).

Swanson said: "This is the book I've been writing in my head ever since discovering Agatha Christie at the age of 12 and reading And Then There Were None. It's about a group of strangers being killed off one by one and not knowing the reason why, or how to stop it."