In ALL THE BEAUTIFUL LIES…days before his college graduation, Harry Ackerson is devastated by the news of his father’s death in a freak accident. Harry returns to his father’s home in Maine to help his stepmother Alice with the funeral arrangements and provide a shoulder for her to lean on. Harry had always considered Alice beautiful, after all, she was much younger than her father and closer to him in age and it was almost impossible to not be physically attracted to her.
Trying to get his father’s affairs in order, Harry meets a mysterious young woman named Grace McGowan at the bookstore his father owned. Though she claims to be new to the area, Harry begins to suspect that Grace may not be a stranger to his family.
Meanwhile, the more time he spends with Alice, the closer they become. When Alice suddenly crosses the line, coming on to Harry, in an enticing, clearly sexual way, Harry is shaken, unsure of his true feelings for Alice.
Mesmerized by these two women, Harry finds himself falling deeper under their spell. Yet the closer he gets to them, the more isolated he feels, disoriented by a growing fear that both women are hiding dangerous—even deadly—secrets . . . and that neither one is telling the truth.
ALL THE BEAUTIFUL LIES is a diabolically clever tale of passion, obsession, revenge, and cold-blooded murder—a sly and brilliant guessing game of a novel and Peter Swanson at his best. Not since Alex boiled a bunny in the classic hit film Fatal Attraction has a slow-burn thriller so vividly painted the agony and ecstasy of pure magnetism grown into obsession. Peter Swanson has created an evocative and sensual world with a plot that builds on the sexual tension created from stolen glances and discreet embraces to create a crescendo that will shock even the most perceptive reader.
Peter Swanson’s debut, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart, which the Washington Post called, “compulsively readable,” featured Liana, one of Swanson’s most manipulative characters. And in The Kind Worth Killing, Swanson introduced readers to Lily, dubbed “my favourite sociopath” by the Daily Mail. Otto Penzler, one of the most discerning critics of the genre said, “Swanson has quickly established himself as today’s master of the suspense novel.”