Saturday 21 March 2020

Book Review: The Neighbour by Fiona Cummins

The Neighbour
by
Fiona Cummins



Publisher: Pan Macmillan 
Imprint: Macmillan 
Publication date:9th April 2019
Genre: Crime / Thriller
Pages: 416
RRP: $29.99 AUD
Format read: Paperback
Source: Courtesy of the publisher

FOR SALE: A lovely family home with good-sized garden and treehouse occupying a plot close to woodland. Quiet, leafy road, good schools, close to the sea and commutable to London. Perfect for kids, fitness enthusiasts, dog walkers . . .

And, it seems, the perfect hunting ground for a serial killer.

On a hot July day, Garrick and Olivia Lockwood and their two children move into 25 The Avenue looking for a fresh start. They arrive in the midst of a media frenzy: they’d heard about the local murders in the press, but Garrick was certain the killer would be caught and it would all be over in no time. Besides, they’d got the house at a steal and he was convinced he could flip it for a fortune.

The neighbours seemed to be the very picture of community spirit. But everyone has secrets, and the residents in The Avenue are no exception.
After six months on the case with no real leads, the most recent murder has turned DC Wildeve Stanton’s life upside down, and now she has her own motive for hunting down the killer – quickly.

 
I almost gave up on this book at about 30 pages. It was dark and chilling, like a horror story and much too creepy for my tastes. After checking out a few reviews and finding they were all glowing 5 stars I decided to give it another 100 pages. Well I was hooked!

The darkness and horror dissipated and was replaced by a compelling mystery full of twists, turns and red herrings. There are a lot of characters to keep track of and they all have their secrets. Each characters story held my interest. I was double guessing all the way through as to who the murderer was and I was suspicious of everyone.

The story gives us multiple characters point of view but they are not telling everything. Everyone is holding something back. The chapters are short which makes for quick reading. I read this over two days!

Smoke, mirrors, secrets and lies makes for a compelling who-dun-it mystery.
And it has a map in the front! I just love seeing maps in books.

🌟🌟🌟🌟🌟 

My rating   5/5


Fiona Cummins is an award-winning former Daily Mirror showbusiness journalist and a graduate of the Faber Academy Writing A Novel course. She lives in Essex with her family. The Neighbour is her third novel, following Rattle and The Collector

 





 

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