Swerve by Vicki Pettersson

Published by

Sarah Ann

on

June 16, 2020

Swerve is a standalone thriller by Vicki Pettersson, who is more widely known for her Signs of the Zodiac urban fantasy series. Both this book and the fantasy series take place in Las Vegas, so if you live there or have spent time there, you might really enjoy this one!

Swerve is a quick read and everything a thriller should be: suspenseful, exciting, and fast-paced. It’s also bloody, gory, and scary, and could easily be adapted for the big screen. I say this mainly because Pettersson’s writing in Swerve is so vivid and colorful you can practically see the story unfolding in your head as if it were an actual movie.

The novel opens with a young woman named Kristine driving through the desert on I-15 with her fiance, Daniel, to visit his rich family for 4th of July weekend. Daniel is a prominent surgeon at a Las Vegas hospital, and Kristine is his assistant in the operating room. While taking a quick break at a rest stop, Kristine is attacked in the bathroom and wakes up minutes later to find Daniel has been abducted. The abductor wants Kristine to take part in a grotesque scavenger hunt if she wants her fiance kept alive.

Swerve is action-packed the entire way through and tastefully woven with psychological elements. There’s lots of guts and violence, and Kristine’s character is a highly likeable badass. It’s obvious Kristine will succeed and beat the bad guy at the end, but devouring the nasty, gory details about the enemy’s demise is just too much fun. Fans of thrillers, psychological and otherwise, will probably appreciate Swerve.

I’ve been a fan of Pettersson since reading The Scent of Shadows when it came out in 2007, which is the first novel in The Signs of the Zodiac series. The series is fantastic if you’re a fan of urban fantasy, and extra fantastic if you’re also familiar with the setting of glitzy Las Vegas. I lived there for many years, which is why I found the series so fun.

Here are the novels in the Sign of the Zodiac series, in order:

Did you read Swerve, and if so, what did you think?

Last Updated on November 11, 2025 by Sarah Ann

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