The Neighbour – Fiona Cummins

FOR SALE: A lovely family home with good-sized garden and treehouse occupying a plot close to woodland. 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.

About the Author:

Fiona Cummins is an award-winning former Daily Mirror showbusiness journalist and a graduate of the Faber Academy Writing A Novel course. Rattle, her debut novel, has been translated into several languages and received widespread critical acclaim from authors including Val McDermid, Lee Child and Martina Cole. Marcel Berlins wrote in The Times: ‘Amid the outpouring of crime novels, Rattle is up there with the best of them.’
Fiona was selected for McDermid’s prestigious New Blood panel at the 2017 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, where her novel was nominated for a Dead Good Reader Award for Most Exceptional Debut. A sequel, The Collector, was published in February 2018 and David Baldacci described it as ‘A crime novel of the very first order’. Rattle and The Collector are now being adapted into a TV series by the Tiger Aspect, the producers of Peaky Blinders.
Her third novel – standalone thriller The Neighbour – was published in April 2019. Ian Rankin described it as ‘creepy as hell’. Her fourth novel When I Was Ten will be published in August 2020.
When Fiona is not writing, she can be found on Twitter, eating biscuits or walking her dogs. She lives in Essex with her family.

My Review:

Looking for something to take your mind off Lockdown and the current situation?  Then The Neighbour might be a perfect solution for you, providing you don’t live in a house that backs onto a wooded area and a serial killer is at large and possibly could be one of your neighbours!

This is a very dark and creepy story about a family who have upped and left their previous home hundreds of miles away for a fresh start and have bought 25 The Avenue for a bargain!  The reason it’s a bargain is because there is a serial killer on the loose and body #5 has just been found on the day they move in!  The Lockwood’s aren’t overly worried, they have enough on their plate with a moody teenage daughter and a home-sick little boy, not to mention their marriage is currently very rocky.

Meanwhile, we are slowly introduced to the other neighbours in this quiet little road and boy, oh boy, they are probably NOT the kind of neighbours you want living next door.  Every single house hides a dark secret and every single resident is lying about something.

The Neighbour kept me guessing throughout, trying to work out each secret and who the serial killer was and I didn’t have a clue until the reveal who the killer was.

Another creepy, disturbing and clever book by Fiona Cummins and highly recommended by me.

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