53 pages • 1 hour read
Peter SwansonA Talent for Murder
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2024A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 1, Chapters 9-15Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 1: “Half Winter, Half Spring”
Part 1, Chapter 9 Summary
Lily asks her parents if they know anyone at Shepaug University, trying to find sources of information about Josie Nixon. After inquiring further, Lily’s father gives her the name Libby Frost, who he says can probably be found at the local bookstore, Stone’s Throw.
Lily heads to Stone’s Throw and meets Libby, who immediately recognizes her. Lily casually asks her about the teacher-training conference at Shepaug, saying that the “husband of one of [her] dearest friends” had attended the conference (73). Unprompted, Libby brings up Josie’s suicide, asking Lily whether she’s heard about it.
Libby tells Lily what she knows about Josie: that Josie didn’t leave a suicide note; that she’d been looking for sexual partners at the conference; that her husband came to town insisting on an investigation, believing that Josie would never have died by suicide; and, finally, that Josie was naked when she jumped from the balcony.
At home that night, Lily researches everything she can find regarding Josie and her husband, Travis. She creates an Instagram profile of a fake investigative reporter and messages Travis, who’s been posting daily, trying to get justice for his late wife. Lily asks whether Travis will be available for an interview regarding Josie’s death. Travis messages back almost immediately, asking when Lily might be available for the interview. They agree to meet in Woodstock, New York, the following day, and Lily calls Martha to discuss her progress.
Part 1, Chapter 10 Summary
After Alan leaves for work, Martha calls the police departments of the cities in which Alan’s alleged victims were found. After a few unsuccessful inquiries, Martha speaks with Detective Melissa Cruz, who ran the murder investigation of Nora Johnson in Fort Myers, Florida. Detective Cruz tells Martha that she suspects that the murderer was an attendee of the conference, as Nora frequently ran scams targeting the married men attending conventions in the hotel where she worked.
Detective Cruz informs Martha that the police have arrested a man named Dyson Holmgren—Nora’s partner. Under threat of imprisonment, Dyson confessed the details of the scam: Nora would invite men from the conference to her car for sex, after which Dyson would surprise them and extort the men for money.
After talking to Detective Cruz, Martha gets in touch with Detective Linda Callahan of San Diego, California, where the body of victim Mikaela Sager was discovered. However, Detective Callahan is unable to give Martha much information of use, just the stomach contents of the victim along with what she was wearing when she was found. Just as Martha prepares to end the call, Detective Callahan remembers another detail: The victim was found wearing a brooch of Jane Austen, similar to the ones that Alan sells at his booth.
Part 1, Chapter 11 Summary
On her way to meet Travis, Lily receives a text from Martha telling her that she’s found some new information. Lily meets Travis at the Woodstock restaurant, surprised by how thin he seems compared to his photos.
Lily asks Travis why he doesn’t believe that Josie died by suicide. She’s expecting him to speak about Josie’s love of life, but instead, Travis tells her that Josie was afraid of heights; if Josie were to die by suicide, Travis claims, she would never do it by jumping from a sixth-floor balcony. Travis asks what Lily has already heard about Josie, and Lily tells him about the rumor that Josie was looking for sexual partners at the conference. Travis confirms this, explaining his and Josie’s polyamorous arrangement in their marriage. Travis’s theory is that Josie found someone to hook up with that night and that the person she chose was the one who killed her. As they finish their food, Travis tells Lily that she’d have liked Josie if she’d had an opportunity to know her.
Part 1, Chapter 12 Summary
Laying on her couch, Martha realizes that her life has been irreversibly altered by the revelation regarding the brooch. She calls Lily, and the two women update each other on what they’ve learned. Martha informs Lily that the deceased women all seem to have some connection to sex work, even if tenuous. Lily tells Martha that this idea makes sense since Josie was also looking for sex at the conference.
Martha informs Lily that Alan will be leaving for his next conference in Saratoga Springs, New York, on Monday. Lily plans to attend the conference to surveil Alan in case he tries to kill again. Just then, Alan pulls into the driveway, forcing Martha to hang up the phone.
Part 1, Chapter 13 Summary
Lily drives to Saratoga Springs, checks into the hotel, and heads to the convention center to check out the vendors (and Alan) before the conference officially starts. Wandering among the vendors, Lily eventually finds Alan’s booth. She plans on trying to speak to him alone, but he’s busy with customers. Once the conference events start, the booth clears out, and Lily is able to gain some one-on-one time with Alan, pretending to be a conference attendee.
As Lily looks through the booth, Alan asks what sort of teacher she is. Lily responds that she’s in between jobs, and Alan recommends that she network with the local Albany teachers in attendance at the conference. She introduces herself to Alan as Addie, and he greets her using his real name. As she walks away, Lily thinks of Alan as having distinctive characteristics of both predator and prey.
Part 1, Chapter 14 Summary
Lily orders a drink, reads a book, and observes the conference. She starts a conversation with a math teacher before spotting Alan paying for a beer. She follows him as he leaves the conference and heads down the street. However, as she follows him, she notices another man also pursuing Alan ahead of her.
Eventually, Alan enters a restaurant for dinner. The man following him, however, stays outside the restaurant, eventually turning back around so that Lily can see his face. The stranger is Ethan Saltz, Martha’s previous boyfriend. Lily’s mind spins as she tries to figure out why Ethan might also be following Alan.
Ethan eventually recognizes Lily and confronts her, saying that she seems familiar to him. Lily lies, saying that she’s a teacher looking for a job at the conference, but Ethan clearly doesn’t believe her. Alan comes out of the restaurant across the street, and Ethan mocks Lily for clearly also following Alan despite denying it. He tells Lily to mind her own business before leaving in a taxi.
Part 1, Chapter 15 Summary
Sitting in a bar, Martha receives a text from Lily asking her to call immediately. Martha wonders whether she married Alan because she loved him or because she just wanted companionship. After a conversation with the handsome bartender, Martha leaves the bar to call Lily back.
Lily tells Martha how she followed Alan from the conference and ran into Ethan, who was also following Alan. Lily’s theory is that Ethan is also involved in the murders. She speculates that he might be killing women in order to frame Alan out of jealousy.
Martha heads home in a near panic. She enters her bedroom and sees a man standing there, holding a knife and grinning at her. The man moves, “the knife piercing her throat so fast that she [doesn’t] even have time to say his name” (119).
Part 1, Chapters 9-15 Analysis
In these chapters, Swanson centers Lily’s character development, evidencing her resourcefulness and determination in her investigation of Josie’s death. Her creation of a fake Instagram profile to contact Travis demonstrates her willingness to employ deception in service of her investigation, highlighting the novel’s thematic interest in Moral Ambiguity in Pursuit of Truth and Justice. Lily’s ability to adopt false identities and manipulate situations for her own purposes reveals a multi-faceted personality that goes beyond her initial presentation and demonstrates how competing values can exist even within the same person.
Martha’s character also evolves as she becomes more proactive in her investigation, contacting police departments and piecing together information. Her internal conflict intensifies as she grapples with her suspicions about Alan and her feelings about their marriage, adding depth to her character and driving much of the narrative tension in her sections of the story. Martha demonstrates a resourcefulness previously untapped prior to her suspicions about Alan’s true character. In this section, Swanson divides the narrative equally between Martha’s and Lily’s perspectives, emphasizing their shared goals.
Swanson pursues the novel’s thematic exploration of Appearance Versus Reality in Lily’s interactions with Alan at the conference, where she adopts a false identity to observe him—the same technique that the novel’s antagonists, Alan and Ethan, use to manipulate women. The discrepancy between Alan’s public persona and his potential involvement in the murders allows Swanson to position him as a red herring for the true serial killer, Ethan. Additionally, the polyamorous relationship between Josie and Travis, which exists outside of traditional, conservative notions of gender roles and fidelity in marriage, introduces an alternative perspective on the nature of trust in relationships.
Swanson continues the motif of surveillance through Travis’s daily posts seeking justice for Josie, further emphasized through Lily and Martha’s intense focus on their investigation. This obsessive pursuit of truth, however, also underscores The Corrosive Nature of Obsession, as it indirectly leads Ethan to target first Martha and then Lily. Swanson positions the conference setting itself as symbolic of a liminal space where normal rules and identities can be suspended—a place where Alan allegedly commits his crimes, where Lily adopts a false identity, and where the lines between professional and personal behavior blur. This setting serves as a microcosm for the larger themes of the novel, where appearances can be deceiving and danger lurks beneath the surface of normalcy.
The Jane Austen brooch found on one of the victims creates a bridge between Alan’s public persona and his potential criminal activities, acting as a symbol of Martha’s ability to trust her instincts. This small object becomes a focal point of the investigation, representing the tangible evidence that Martha and Lily are seeking. The brooch of Jane Austen, one of the most famous female authors in the English language, also serves as a subtle symbol of empowerment, allowing Martha and Lily to reclaim the autonomy that Ethan steals from the women he kills.
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By Peter Swanson
