Book ~ "Before She Knew Him" (2019) Peter Swanson

From Goodreads ~ Hen and her husband Lloyd have settled into a quiet life in a new house outside of Boston, Massachusetts. Hen (short for Henrietta) is an illustrator and works out of a studio nearby and has found the right meds to control her bipolar disorder. Finally, she’s found some stability and peace. But when they meet the neighbors next door, that calm begins to erode as she spots a familiar object displayed on the husband’s office shelf. The sports trophy looks exactly like one that went missing from the home of a young man who was killed two years ago. 

Hen knows because she’s long had a fascination with this unsolved murder - an obsession she doesn’t talk about anymore, but can’t fully shake either.

Hen and Lloyd have recently moved to the suburbs ... she is an artist with a studio nearby and he works every day in the city.  When their next door neighbours, Matthew and Mira, invite them over for supper, Hen recognizes a fencing trophy in Matthew's office as belonging to a young man who was murdered a couple years ago, which is still unsolved.  Matthew said he bought it at a yard sale but he knows that Hen somehow knows the truth that he had killed the young man.  When Hen goes to police to report her hunch, no one really takes her seriously (not a big surprise, right?) especially when they look into her past and find she has a bipolar disorder.  Hoping to stop Matthew from killing again, she starts meeting with him and discovers that nothing is going to stop him.

This book is written in third person perspective.  As a head's up, there is swearing and violence.  When I started reading it, I wanted to stop not too far into it because I wasn't digging it ... it was so boring and dumb.  But I continued on because I've read some of this author's other books and enjoyed them and hoped it would get better ... but it didn't.  There was a lot going on and it was so convoluted and unbelievable.  The ending was ridiculous ... when I got there, I was surprised at how it ended (I didn't see it coming) but was also stunned at how absurd it was.