The Girl with a Clock for a Heart - by Peter Swanson (Paperback)

About the Book

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.

Book Synopsis

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.

From the Back Cover

George Foss has passed the age when he thinks he might fall madly in love or have anything truly remarkable happen to him. He spends evenings at his local tavern talking about the Red Sox and obsessing over a lost love from his college days who vanished twenty years earlier. Until she reappears.

George has both dreamed of and dreaded seeing Liana Decter again. She's an enigma and quite possibly someone who was involved in a murder years ago. But she's back--and needs his help. She says that some men are after her and that they believe she's stolen their money. And now they will do whatever it takes to get it back.

George can't say no--he never could--and soon his life is gone as he is pulled into a terrifying whirlpool of lies and betrayal, from which there is no sure escape.

Review Quotes

"The Girl With a Clock for a Heart is an edge-of-your-seat psychological thriller that dares you to turn the next page, but it's much more dangerous than that. It dares you to take a hard, long look at people from your past and ask yourself who's worth holding on to and who's worth letting go. 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

"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 Girl with a Clock for a Heart has a plot that evokes Robert Parker and Dennis Lehane, a voice reminiscent of James M. Cain and Raymond Chandler, and a femme fatale for the ages: mysterious, brilliant, possibly monstrous--and irresistibly alluring. It is a sparkling, haunting debut." - Scott Stossel, editor of The Atlantic and author of My Age of Anxiety

"Swanson gives readers an adrenaline rush through all the hairpin turns." - Publishers Weekly

"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

"The parallel stories unwind relentlessly with audacious and spectacular twists . . . An intense mix of noir, pulp fiction, and fun--you can tell that Swanson, a Boston native, is happily in his element here--the novel is laden with atmospheric, evocative descriptions, ripe for cinematic translation. The most unsurprising aspect of this book? It's already been optioned for a film." - Boston Globe

"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? There are many candidates, of course . . . but we might start with Shakespeare's Goneril and Regan . . . And here's a new contender: Liana Decter, who causes endless heartbreak and occasional death in Peter Swanson's compulsively readable first novel . . . Swanson tells his story in chapters that alternate between past and present. Each story has its own suspense, and each carries us deeper into George's obsession with Liana and her bottomless deceit. . . . This is a highly original story, well told, that should be a contender for crime fiction's best first novel of 2014." - Washington Post

"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

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

"This brilliant debut thriller has all the characteristics necessary for best-sellerdom. There is George Foss, an everyman protagonist who has never gotten over his first college sweetheart; Liana Decter, that first love, now a femme fatale as stunning as she is unpredictable; and a plot with surprises and twists on every other page. The Girl with a Clock for a Heart will take its rightful place beside my favorites from Michael Connelly and Dennis Lehane." - DailyCandy.com

"It's hard not to warm to this book--and very hard not to read it in one sitting. Swanson's writing is clean and measured, he throws in a ton of cliff-hangers, and he plays out his stolen identity concept--impossible in the age of Facebook, but how intriguing to remember how it wouldn't have been, 20 years ago--to thrilling, chilling effect." - The Guardian (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

"Swanson's debut is as good as they come. A thrilling slice of contemporary noir with twists that you won't see coming." - Mark Billingham, author of The Demands

"[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

"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

"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