Do you see what i see by Peter Swanson

Of all the titles he had kept for his books, this one felt like asking for a feedback right from the name itself!! Having been touted as a christmas release like last time, probably he is coming up with such setup of releasing a smaller novel every year, towards the end and a bigger one midway. The story like many of his recent ones, has numerous references to several other famous crime thriller stories by famous authors, as if Swanson is giving us some tips as to what to read if we are not liking this book or as a side benefit of reading his books!! The story is split into three chapters with all of them being narrated by the same person but from different context.

It all begins with an invite to a beach house of a famous author to the narrator, the purpose being to ghost write or correct the latest novel of the famous author for the agent, who is the common connect between the two, feels it is not upto the mark and needs some rejig before it is released to market. The narrator meets with the family of the author and soon the setup is complete with the best friend of the author, a competitor whose work had actually been plagiarised by the author which had actually shot him into stardom, the wife and sister of the author who seems shady from start along with a memory lapse grandma completes the group. They've all gathered to celebrate christmas eve, christmas or newyear (i lost track of it to be honest) and like any thriller setup a murder happens, in fact a double murder, with everyone seemingly have a motive and mean. The famous author lies dead in his room while the plagiarised author lies dead in the sea. The detective in charge asks the narrator to tell the events preceeding the death and that is how the first chapter ends with the lead to its beginning. All throughout there are potential self realization thoughts of how the next couple of books after a superhit first one is important for any author, a hat tip to his own declining setup i guess by Swanson, for his last four five books were getting worser by release. The second chapter reveals a twist as to the preivous releationship between the wife of the author and narrator which doesn't contribute much, but for the idea of marrying a rich person and kill him soon to get all his wealth which is ingrown in the wife character from her youth. The third chapter finally reveals who actually killed the people, with the wife character beign the prime suspect only for the sister to have done the deed in the end. But the motive for her side of the story was not well established, considering that he might've been asked to close out the story within 120 pages. The plagiarized author's death is even more vague, having drowned in the sea, drunk.

After reading the book, the title struck me again - did i see what the author saw in coming up with this book. Definitely not.