Swiped

In British journalist Chilton's brash and luminous debut, 20-something Gwen Turner soothes the pain of her recent breakup by swiping through dating apps. The only problem? A serial killer starts stalking and murdering each man she meets shortly after their first dates. When the police name Gwen the prime suspect in the slayings--after all, she's almost always the last person to see the victims alive--she has to set aside her responsibilities as the maid of honor for her best friend's fast-approaching wedding and find the killer herself. Tracking down her former dates and warning them that they could be next on the chopping block rapidly devolves into a catalogue of horrible hookups in undignified locations (dive bars; mini golf courses), leaving Gwen scrambling to separate her sleuthing from her sex life before she ends up behind bars. Chilton nimbly balances humor and horror, fortifying his flashy premise with meticulous research into the data mining that powers most dating apps. Luckily, he layers all that hyper-contemporary sound and fury on top of an exceptionally well-constructed mystery plot, with surprises that will keep readers turning pages late into the night. Mystery fans will rush to swipe right on Chilton--he's got the goods. Agent: James Wills, Watson, Little Ltd. (May)

Internet dating comes under the microscope in Chilton's darkly funny thriller. After going on a few dates with various losers she's swiped right on, English coffee-truck owner Gwendolyn Turner is pretty fed up with the dating scene. It doesn't help that her best friend is due to get married to her milksop of a fiance on Valentine's Day. Gritting her teeth through Sarah's hellish hen party, Gwen takes a break to check the Connector app and gets a weird message from a possible match: He says he's going to have to reschedule their date and includes a link to a news story about the death of a local man--a man Gwen had gone on a terrible date with a week earlier. When the police arrive to question her, it turns out that the guy she dated next is dead, too. Reeling from this strange news, she makes a list of the six men she's gone out with--from the racist mini-golfer to the full-of-himself mama's boy. As the body count mounts, Gwen becomes a person of interest in the investigation, of course, but the bigger question is, who could have known to whom she was matched? Who has hacked the app and is pulling the strings? And why her? She'll have to do her own detective work, with the help of a shady Cuppacino employee and an infamous hacker with a French bulldog. There is definitely something ridiculous about this whole affair; the saving grace is that both Gwen and the author seem to recognize this, and despite the serial killer plot, nothing is taken too seriously. Of course, this could also be off-putting to some readers; no matter how terrible these men were to Gwen, they (probably) don't deserve to be murdered. Still, Chilton shines a blackly humorous light on male misbehavior and love in the age of the internet--plus the timeless and ridiculous societal pressure of finding "the one." Bound to become a classic of the singles scene. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.