A Talent for Murder

“And maybe that was more important than yearning, just having someone looking out for you in small ways. Yearning never lasted anyway. Kindness did.”

Before her untimely murder, Josie considers what makes her feel connected to her husband, Travis. The sentiment mirrors Lily’s feelings about Henry, whom she feels no passion for but appreciates for his kindness.

“She’d read somewhere once that our memories are never reliable, that what we are actually remembering is not the event itself, but a replay of the last time we remembered the event.”

Swanson establishes the motif of memory in the opening chapter, revealing Martha’s suspicions about her husband through her worries over her own faulty memory. Martha’s arc through the novel sees her learning to trust herself and her own instincts, which turn out to be accurate.

“It had begun to rain outside, a cold spring rain, and she was actually happy about it. Her mom had always reminded her that when she was a seven-year-old she had declared rain to be the best weather because it was reading weather.”

The majority of the central characters in A Talent for Murder are fans of literature and reading, as Lily and Martha attended the same library science graduate program, Ethan is a former professional writer, and Martha and Alan initially connect over a shared enjoyment of literature. Swanson uses the love of reading as a connective thread between all his characters that informs their interactions throughout the narrative.

“As Martha had pointed out, if Alan attacked another woman on one of his trips while we were taking our time trying to figure out what to do, then we would be partly responsible. I had a sudden vision of the dead women that we were now responsible for—Josie Nixon, the sex worker from Atlanta, the bartender from Fort Myers, the receptionist in Chicago, the masseuse in San Diego.”

Throughout the novel, Swanson shrouds Lily as a character in a cloak of mystery, keeping her internal motivations largely hidden from the reader despite the fact that her chapters utilize her first-person point of view. However, in passages like this one, Lily reveals her actual reasons behind her investigation, namely a feeling of responsibility toward Ethan’s historical and potential future victims.

“She was a librarian, after all, and there’s nothing a librarian likes more than an assignment.”

The workaday aspect of Lily’s investigation, which she treats as a job despite not being a detective herself, evokes the classic thriller trope of the amateur sleuth. In A Talent for Murder, Swanson relates Lily’s investigative skills and resourcefulness to her job as a librarian.

“This morning, when he’d figured out that we were both going to be away, I saw a startled look in his eyes, a combination of fear and sadness. The closest I can come to describing it is that it looked like grief. And I think in a way it was. I spend too much time with my father to waste time analyzing him, but I do think that when he is alone, he is consumed with visions of death, both his own and those of the people he loves, and it’s too much for him to bear.”

In her pursuit of Ethan, Lily grapples with The Corrosive Nature of Obsession as her investigation takes her away from the people in her life that need her support, such as her emotionally fragile father. Swanson highlights Lily’s intelligence and demonstrated capacity for obsession as the things that lead Ethan to view the two of them as similar.

“Until she had seen that photograph of the Jane Austen brooch, a part of her believed that she’d concocted the whole thing out of her overactive imagination, that her husband was exactly who he seemed to be and that the crimes (the murders) that had taken place in cities where he’d traveled only represented an odd coincidence. But now she lay on the couch, her mind both numb and somehow spinning, and looked up at her ceiling with its tiny cracks and realized that her world had altered forever.”

The reveal of the Jane Austen brooch represents a turning point in Martha’s arc. Forced to confront the disconnect between the person she has believed Alan to be and the reality of him, Martha learns to trust her own instincts, despite the ways that Alan has gaslit and misled her.

“As he got closer, passing below a streetlamp that had just turned on, I got a good look. His hair was different, a little darker, and he was wearing glasses, but the face was the same. Wide jaw and high cheekbones. A little more wrinkled than I remembered, but still startlingly handsome. Ethan Saltz.”

Swanson highlights Lily’s intelligence and perceptiveness through the motif of memory. Her ability to recognize Ethan immediately despite the years that have passed foreshadows her ability to see through the various public façades that he constructs for himself.

“She wandered through the downstairs, pulling curtains and turning on lamps. Twice, she nearly tripped over Gilbert, who was right underfoot. She kept thinking about Ethan Saltz following Alan in Saratoga Springs. Maybe Lily had been wrong. Not about seeing Ethan, but about thinking Ethan had anything to do with her husband.”

Though the motif of following remains central to the narrative, Martha never follows anyone herself—rather, the following is conducted by Ethan and Lily, positioning them as the novel’s primary antagonist and protagonist, respectively. Swanson characterizes Martha as passive and insecure, relying on the help of others, which ultimately leads to her murder by Ethan.

“In Martha’s mind she had already turned and begun to run away, hightailing it down the stairs and through the door and out into the night, where she could scream for help. But she hadn’t run. She was standing still, her legs immobile.

Oh, it’s over, she thought, almost casually. The man moved, inhumanly quick, the knife piercing her throat so fast that she didn’t even have time to say his name.”

Even in the moment of her death, Martha reacts to Ethan passively, not making any attempt to flee before he strikes—a moment that positions her as a foil for Lily. Later, when Swanson places Lily in a similar situation, she uses her wit and intelligence to defeat Ethan.

“It was around this time that he first came up with the idea of killing his grandfather. That would show them, he thought. Everyone’s freaking out because Vicky can’t control herself, and meanwhile Grampy dies all alone in his room. The thought of it made Ethan feel like he was smiling inside of himself. Also, if Grampy died, then he’d get his own room back.”

Swanson characterizes Ethan as a sociopath with little to no empathy, incapable of the self-reflection needed for change—traits that reveal themselves early in his life. Unlike the other characters, Ethan shows no change in his personality or values over the course of the novel.

“And he had actually become relatively successful in the art world, having sold several genuine pieces of art along with several very good forgeries. It went against Ethan’s philosophy to engage in other criminal pursuits besides the art of murder, but forgery was surprisingly easy, especially, or only, when it was done on a small scale.”

Swanson portrays Ethan as a person whose instincts are in constant tension with his desires. He behaves in a tightly controlled way, always considering the risk and reward of his criminal actions. However, his desire to be memorialized in his infamy causes him to act contrary to his self-protective instincts, taking risks that ultimately lead to his demise.

“He could have his pick of available girls, and for a time, toward the end of high school and the beginning of college, he’d picked the most popular girls, the prettiest, the ones who wanted him because he was a prize as well. But those girls, he found, were uninteresting to him. They were self-absorbed, and scorekeepers, and already prone to cruelty and extremes.”

Swanson evokes Ethan’s internal perspective on his past actions to reveal his narcissism, only considering his own desires and plans and never those of others, most notably women. His extreme self-absorption leads him to these sorts of obvious double standards, in which Ethan rejects women for the exact personality characteristics that he himself possesses.

“Besides, the list was his secret, but it wasn’t going to be his secret forever. One day the whole world would know just how many people he’d killed in his lifetime. Either he’d eventually get caught—not the worst thing in the world if he was very old when it happened—or he would die and the list would be found.”

Ethan’s particular sociopathy fixates on memorializing his legacy of violence, earning him widespread notoriety in his death. Swanson uses Ethan’s murder list as a symbol of this desire, making it clear that Ethan kills in order to leave a twisted legacy in the world.

“Getting a little bored, Ethan had decided to see if could point the finger in Peralta’s direction a little more forcefully.”

Despite Ethan’s predilection for total control, Swanson positions his hubris and tendency to act impulsively as his Achilles heel, placing Ethan’s self-protective instincts and inability to withstand boredom directly at odds. This tension is consistent with the symptoms of medically diagnosed sociopathy.

“But there was another feeling that Ethan had, one that was familiar but rare. He was angry. Seeing Lily had brought back the feeling he’d had all those years ago when she’d taken Martha away from him. He remembered it so well. Her smug look from across the table at the bar where Martha had just broken up with him.”

Since Ethan doesn’t view the women in his life as people, but rather as objects that he can possess and manipulate, Lily represents a threat to that paradigm. This passage foreshadows the ways in which his desire to eliminate this threat eventually leads to his death, highlighting The Corrosive Nature of Obsession.

“A wave of faintness passed over me, and I shut my eyes for a moment. When I opened them, nothing in the room had changed. Martha was still dead. As I turned to leave, I noticed a framed print on the wall next to the door, a pen-and-ink drawing advertising the Berkshire Literary Festival. It was familiar to me, and then I remembered that it was a piece of art that Martha had hung in her dorm room back when we’d been students together. I wondered if Martha’s killer had seen the print as well, and if he remembered it as I had.”

In Lily’s characterization, Swanson centers her desire to protect those she views as vulnerable, especially those she sees as fragile (like her father) or naïve (like Martha). Ethan’s attack on Martha demonstrates that, at this point in the story, he still holds the most agency, underscoring the narrative tension and emphasizing the lengths that Lily will need to go to defeat him.

“He had a hard time describing it, but did say that even when Ethan was a toddler, sometimes he’d just stare at the rest of his family like they were exhibits in a zoo. Scott thinks he was born bad.”

Through the testimonies of Ethan’s family members, Swanson reveals glimpses of Ethan’s true character. Ethan’s brother tells Henry that Ethan was always bad and that he never seemed particularly interested in his own family. Unlike many notable serial killers, Ethan didn’t have an abusive upbringing, further reifying Swanson’s portrayal of the lack of empathy and desire for murder as elements of Ethan’s sociopathy.

“Oh, from that Matt Damon movie about the guy who kills his friend and takes over his life. We’d both seen it—not together, I think—but Ethan told me how much he loved it, and how it was probably something he’d do himself one day.”

Swanson includes allusions to the 1999 Anthony Minghella film The Talented Mr. Ripley to underscore the menacing nature of Ethan’s tendency toward obsession. In the film, Matt Damon plays a serial con man who commits multiple murders as a result of his obsessions. Damon’s Ripley is portrayed as selfish and violent yet refined and educated, which Swanson equates to the way Ethan would like the world to view him.

“He walked briskly back to the Kia, marveling again at his luck. Part of him wondered if he should just run her down in the street, make her a victim of a hit-and-run. But, no, he did want to spend some time with her in Tohickon before killing her. He felt he deserved that, like buying a painting he couldn’t quite afford as a special treat.”

Ethan views his violence toward women as a treat, something special he can do to make himself feel better. This aspect of his personality reveals both his worldview and his dominant character flaws—hubris and the complete lack of empathy for others. Both these flaws lead to his eventual demise, as he consistently underestimates Lily and Henry’s intelligence and tenacity.

“I didn’t think there was any way out of the situation, not a physical way. My best bet was to try to stay alive as long as possible in the hope that Henry Kimball might figure out where I was. And the way to stay alive was to keep Ethan’s interest, keep him talking, keep him entertained.”

Swanson’s use of the first-person point of view for Lily’s chapters places her intelligence and will to survive on full display following her kidnapping. Ethan’s biggest liabilities as a criminal are his hubris and his tendency to underestimate other’s abilities, as evidenced by his choice to toy with Lily instead of killing her.

“‘But that actually is art,’ I said. ‘What you’re doing, and what I did to Chet, that was just butchering, really. Getting away with it doesn’t make it art. It might make you smart, or clever, but that’s all it is.’

Ethan was quiet, and I wondered if I’d gone too far, if he was going to get up and come over and slit my throat. I closed my eyes and accepted that possibility.

‘We can’t control other people’s opinions,’ he said at last. ‘I suspect that when people know what I’ve done there will be varying takes on it.’ He sounded resigned, almost.”

In this passage, Ethan grapples with his desire for an infamous legacy and the reality that many will view his crimes as despicable. Lily challenges his perception that his talent for murder is art—a challenge that appeals to his desire to stave off boredom. Ethan ultimately delays killing Lily because he finds her interesting, allowing her the time to formulate a plan to defeat him.

“He’d never met anyone like her before. Even if she was lying to him about her past, he still hadn’t met anyone willing to lie about such things. And for one moment Ethan felt as though he knew what it might be like to be in love with someone. Not that he was in love with Lily. But he knew what the feeling was, an anticipation in seeing them again, in hearing their voice. A desire to prolong the time spent with them.”

The connection that Ethan feels to Lily—the first he experiences with another person—stems from a belief that they share similar compulsions. Swanson counters this view through his portrayal of Lily, who exhibits a strong sense of both empathy for others and moral justice throughout the novel, reinforcing Lily and Ethan as counterparts—two people, both intelligent and resourceful, with opposing experiences of moral conscience.