The Girl with a Clock for a Heart: A Novel - Couverture souple

“The book has pace to burn. It feels like a throwback to Ross MacDonald’s flawed but relentless work . . . glimmers with bright and original moments.” (USA Today)

“In The Girl with a Clock for a Heart a long-lost lover resurfaces, with chaos in her wake. A must read!” (Harper's Bazaar)

“[A] roller coaster thrill-fest of a ride, filled with deliciously wicked moments of mystery, murder, and mayhem, double-cross and deception. A cerebral noir thriller debut.” (New York Journal of Books)

“Swanson gives readers an adrenaline rush through all the hairpin turns.” (Publishers Weekly)

“The pace is fast . . . and the plot genuinely twisty . . . [It is] seemingly pre-measured for the movies . . . often to good effect; all in all, a quick, deft, promising first crime novel.” (Kirkus Reviews)

“The labyrinthine plot here has a grip of high-tensile steel.” (Financial Times (UK))

“What do you say when a woman who broke your heart years ago and is wanted for questioning in connection to a murder pops back into your life to ask a favor? If she’s as alluring as Liana Dector, you say, ‘Yes.’ And hope you survive . . . The Girl with a Clock for a Heart is a twisty, sexy, electric thrill ride.” (Dennis Lehane, New York Times bestselling author)

“An edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller that dares you to turn the next page . . . This novel burns faster and hotter than a lit fuse, and you’ll be feeling its heat long after the explosive ending.” (Wiley Cash, New York Times bestselling author of A Land More Kind Than Home)

“The parallel stories unwind relentlessly with audacious and spectacular twists . . . An intense mix of noir, pulp fiction, and fun . . . The most unsurprising aspect of this book? It’s already been optioned for a film.” (Boston Globe)

“Who are literature’s most lethal women? . . . Here’s a new contender: Liana Decter, who causes endless heartbreak and occasional death in Peter Swanson’s compulsively readable [The Girl with a Clock for a Heart] . . . should be a contender for crime fiction’s best first novel of 2014.” (Washington Post)

Already optioned for film, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart is Peter Swanson’s electrifying tale of romantic noir, with shades of Hitchcock and reminiscent of the classic movie Body Heat. It is the story of a man swept into a vortex of irresistible passion and murder when an old love mysteriously reappears.

On an ordinary Friday evening at his favorite Boston tavern, George Foss’s comfortable, predictable life is shattered when a beautiful woman sits down at the bar, a woman who vanished without a trace twenty years ago.

Liana Dector isn’t just an ex-girlfriend, the first love George couldn’t quite forget. She’s also a dangerous enigma and quite possibly a cold-blooded killer wanted by the police. Suddenly, she’s back—and she needs George’s help. Ruthless men believe she stole some money . . . and they will do whatever it takes to get it back.

George knows Liana is trouble. But he can’t say no—he never could—so he makes a choice that will plunge him into a terrifying whirlpool of lies, secrets, betrayal, and murder from which there is no sure escape.

Bold and masterful, full of malicious foreboding and subtle surprises, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart is an addictive, nonstop thriller—an ever-tightening coil of suspense that grips you right up to its electrifying end.