I didn't know what to expect of this story. I really liked The Kind Worth Killing but this one felt a bit different, maybe that was the idea. I still enjoyed it but still didn't stay in my mind that much and it didn't have a substantial impact on me like The Kind Worth Killing or Nine Lives (that book I really liked).

This was a clever and exciting read. Characters that you will be fascinated by and a plot that keeps you guessing through every twist.

I was so eager to read this second book and it definitely didn’t disappoint! The tension and suspense was palpable and gritty. Absolutely loved it- as I suspected I would!

The Kind Worth Killing was such a fun book and I just had to read this sequel. We follow a private detective who in the previous book was stabbed by Lily but survived, and now they are sort of friends. I liked the beginning of the novel, it had such an intriguing concept and Joan seemed so intense, so mysterious. But I felt like we got all the answers of what happened so quickly and it was a bit tiresome to watch the detective (Mr Kimball) try to catch up. I wasn't entirely sold on Richard's character either. Overall, this was fun but lacking a bit in pacing and generally keeping the mystery going. I have to say that I love Lily but didn't care for her character's part in this novel at all - it was a bit too convenient, too neat, you know?

Let me start by telling you how electrifying was The kind worth killing (TKWk). So, when I got approved for The kind worth saving (TKWS), I was on cloud nine. I ventured into the book with a lot of expectations. It met that and more.

TKWS has a few of the recurring from the previous book but it can be read as a standalone book. The readers who read TKWK gets some solace to find out what eventually happened to Det. Kimball and Lily Kinter.

Henry Kimball has now become a private investigator and works out of his office. His days are pretty simple until his ex student Joan Whalen comes to his office for his help.

This is one of those books where you should not read the blurb or summary, just delve in. This is something I don’t often recommend. TKWS will entice from the very first page and force you to devour the book. This is equally electrifying as the last one, if not more.

The book narrated from the perspective of Henry Kimball and a few others. The format of the book is in then and now and every chapter ends with a cliffhanger. I could not stay away from the book for long and the times I was away I was wondering about it.

My recommendation grab of a copy of this book and the TKWK and be ready to be completely thrilled by both the books.

My rating is 4.5 stars

Thank you NetGalley and publisher for the copy of the book.

Another cracking read from this talented author. This was an easy to read story about two people seemingly unconnected who devise the demise of others. However by being a little bit too clever one of them involves a private investigator who potentially could link things together. Great characterisation and a good pace.

I LOVED The Kind Worth Killing so was excited for Peter Swanson's follow up. While this book can absolutely be read as a standalone if you have no intention of reading the first one, I do think it's better to have read TKWK first.

Being perfectly honest, this one just didn't grip me in the same way with TKWK did. It took a long time to get going in my opinion and I think way too much time was spent on Joan's younger years which could have been doing in a couple of chapters. I don't think I really started enjoying it until about 50% of the way through when the plot really started picking up and things actually started happening. The 'twists' are ok but nothing of quality which feels very disappointing following TKWK.

The book deals with some very dark and uncomfortable subjects and there are some similarities between the two books which I don't think works in its favour personally as it feels like it's already been done. None of the characters are particularly likeable which isn't a problem in certain books but you just find you don't massively care as a result. I also just don't get the whole Lily/Henry friendship personally.

Thanks to Faber and Faber and NetGalley for ARC.

Henry Kimball, policeman turned high school teacher turned poet and PI, is living a precarious existence and needs work, so when ex-pupil Joan walks into his dingy office to hire him to investigate her husband's alleged infidelity, he takes the job. In the time-honoured tradition of all PI fiction, the client isn't telling the whole truth, and Kimball is embroiled in something very dark. He uses all his skills, including the literary ones, to try to uncover the truth, and involves his old nemesis Lily Kintner in the process.

It's almost 8 years since the masterful The Kind Worth Killing was published to great acclaim. This is a sequel of sorts and is similarly brilliant. The Kind Worth Saving can be read on its own merits; Swanson is skilful in ensuring the reader knows just enough of the backstory to understand why Kimball needs the help and why Kintner might offer it.

The sequel to one of the best books I've ever read The Kind Worth Killing. I just loved this! I love both books, and I highly recommend both (and every other book by Peter Swanson). He writes like no one else and creates the creepiest characters and settings. I love Lily and Henry and can only hope that there will be more books to come 💓xx

I am a big Peter Swanson fan and especially loved The Kind Worth Killing. This book started well and I enjoyed it well enough as a standalone but I can't help feeling a sequel wasn't needed. Henry wasn't the best thing about the first book so I wasn't overly hooked on his character in this one either.

While this did take me a little longer to read than book one I liked it pretty much the same.
Book one left me with questions that thankfully book two answered. While it could feel a little underwhelming, I think for those characters it makes sense for what happened to happen.
In this we get told the answers to who did it very early. So the rest is really about the characters. Learning part of their past and also how they try to get away with murder.
Swanson makes this type of story work. Where there isn't really big twists but the truth is laid out for everyone.

Henry Kimball is a private detective with a checkered past. He’s had a variety of careers - English teacher and police officer both ending in disaster.
A new job opportunity arises when an ex pupil, Joan, walks in to his office wanting him to follow her husband. She knows he is having an affair and doesn’t seem particularly bothered. Henry is not sure everything is quite what it seems. He soon finds himself more involved than he should be and events begin to escalate.
A well plotted novel with plenty of surprises, it kept me fully engaged and I’d recommend giving it a go

Thank you to NetGalley and the publishers for providing a copy in exchange for an honest review.

This was a fine thriller, gripping and a definite page turner. I do wonder how necessary it was to connect to the superior The Kind Worth Killing, the threads that connect the two don’t have any emotional impact – Henry is not the most dynamic protagonist, so his return doesn’t add much to the narrative – and in fact the connective tissue makes the fantastic ending of The Kind Worth Killing feel less impactful now. That said, I found the other returning character fascinating in the first book, less so in this one but the narrative definitely picked up whenever they were on the page.

Thanks net galley for giving me an early copy of this wonderful
Book it was one of the best books I have read this year.Kimball was a school
Teacher but after a shooting incident at school
He retired as a teacher and became a private detective.
His next assignment happened when Joan an ex pupil from
School wanted kimball to
Follow her husband as he was having an affair a job that Mr kimball took on
For the xtra money
Never realising where
This job was going to lead
Excellent book top
Stars

Peter Swanson is one of my favourite thriller writers, and The Kind Worth Killing is the one book I recommend to everyone who asks for thriller recs. So of course I jumped at the chance to read The follow-up, The Kind Worth Saving, which revisits the characters of Henry Kimball and Lily Kintner - last seen when Lily stabbed Detective Kimball at the end of The Kind Worth Killing.

Having left the police, Henry is now a PI and is hired by one of his former pupils (having had a brief stint as a teacher prior to joining the force) to investigate her husband, who she suspects of having an affair. But nothing goes to plan and soon, Henry and Lily are on the path of a pair of killers.

Beautifully written, as always, and with the insight into human nature I’ve come to expect from Swanson, this is another brilliant read.

4.5 stars rounded up to 5

So good I loved this book. It hade me hooked from the very start - just like The kind worth killing. It is dark and gritty and has a way of holding on to your interest the whole way through. This book is my kind of thriller book. I would like to raise a hand and say one thing though. The physical descriptions of the females in the book - is a bit “male midlife crisis-ish”.

”She was short and built like an ex-gymnast, with wide shoulders and strong-looking legs. Her face was a circle, her features—blue eyes, pert nose, round mouth— bunched into the middle. She wore dark jeans and a tweedy brown blazer, which made her look as though she’d just dismounted a horse. Her shoulder-length hair was black and glossy and parted on one side.”

Men one other hand is described as “a pale, lanky boy” or “(h)e had bad posture and a low hairline that made him look a little like a caveman.”

The author feels a bit “1990s”. But the story is good.

The Kind Worth Saving is the long-awaited sequel to The Kind Worth Killing but can easily be read as a standalone as the past history of some of the characters is repeated in this book.
Unfortunately the sequel didn't live up to its predecessor, parts of the book were repetitive going over and over the same stuff until it was boring me. It lacked the thrill of the first book and personally I think it was just ok.

This is an easy to read book that is cleverly plotted. Short chapters switch between characters and times leading the reader to turn another page, and another. It became apparent that there had been a previous book featuring the two main characters but this didn't put me off and I'll be sure to get the first book. This was a good story well told.

There is no doubting Peter Swanson’s love of the crime fiction genre. His books bristle with references to old crime novels and movies, and he enjoys taking old mystery tropes and playing with them and updating them. Probably my favourite of Swanson’s novels is The Kind Worth Killing, which was a loose variation on Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers On A Train, but with lots of originality and cleverness.

The ending of The Kind Worth Killing was satisfying and very appropriate, but it did leave you wanting more and now, some eight years later, Swanson has bowed to requests from fans around the world and produced a kind of sequel, The Kind Worth Saving

As an aside, Swanson says that he has received more emails and letters about the character of Lily Kinter, who appeared in The Kind Worth Killing, than any other character he has written about and had long sought for a way to include her in a new story. The Kind Worth Saving provided that opportunity.

I won’t discuss the plot of The Kind Worth Saving in any detail, because to do so would ruin some of the surprises in the earlier book. While The Kind Worth Saving can be read as a stand alone novel, you get much more pleasure from it if you have read The Kind Worth Killing first.

In essence The Kind Worth Saving is a multiple viewpoint novel, with flash backs and clever twists. The story opens with a woman hiring a private detective to investigate whether her husband is having an affair with a colleague at his real estate firm. The detective probably becomes too involved in the case before the story moves in some unexpected directions and a character from the earlier book makes a welcomed appearance.

This is a very clever book with lots of switchbacks and surprises. At one stage, I mentally applauded Swanson for the smart way he manipulated readers’ assumptions, and provided a twist which took me by me surprise.

In all, The Kind Worth Saving one of my favourite books of the year so far. Well worth checking out, but please read The Kind Worth Killing first.

The follow up to The Kind Worth Killing and every bit as good. This could be read as a stand-alone as catch up information is included but I would highly recommend reading them in order as reading this gives spoilers for the previous book. Brilliantly written, from multiple POV’s, this is a completely addictive read with two great protagonists in Henry Kimball and Lily Kintner.

Briefly, Henry is an ex teacher, an ex police detective and now a private investigator. He is close to Lily and thinks he loves her despite the fact that he knows she is a killer, who stabbed him when he tried to arrest her. Joan, a former pupil of Henry’s, is married to Richard. She knows he is having an affair with one of her friends so asks Henry to obtain proof. But at the same time she has her own plan involving a man with whom she has a murderous history!

None of the people are really the sort you would want as friends. Henry works by gut instinct and in this case he will need every bit of it simply to survive. It’s difficult to know who is really worth saving apart from Henry but it makes the read so much more enjoyable. A classic domestic noir, full of twists and turns, just a brilliant read.