The Killer Next Door By Alex Marwood

[amazon_link id=”B00CJBWKRO” target=”_blank” ][/amazon_link]I read Alex’s first book ‘The Wicked Girls’ last year and I loved it, so much so that I bought a copy of it for the good friend who also thought it was a great thriller, so when I heard of her book ‘The Killer Next Book’ I jumped at the chance to review it.

In a gloomy bedsit-riddled South London wreck, lorded over by a lecherous landlord, a horrifying collection quietly waits to be discovered. Yet all six residents have something to hide. Collette is on the run from her ex-boss, Cher is an underage children’s home escapee; lonely Thomas tries to make friends with his neighbours; while a gorgeous Iranian asylum seeker and a ‘quiet man’ nobody sees to try keep themselves hidden. And there for them for all is Vesta, a woman, who knows everything that goes in on the house or she thought she did. Then in the dead of night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance, but one of them is a killer expertly hiding their pastime, all the while closing in on their next victim.

The story is set in a grotty and miserable bedsit where six strangers live together all unhappy with their lives and all of them harbouring secrets and running from the pasts. Collette is running for her life after seeing her boss commit a terrible crime, she goes on the run never staying long in the same place but after hearing that her mother is unwell reluctantly returns to spend some time with her. Vesta lives in the basement flat, a kindhearted elderly woman who dwells on the life that she could have had. Cher is a bolshy outspoken young woman, who has lived a hard life, Hossein has escaped from Iran after his wife tragically disappeared and Thomas is eager to make friends with his new neighbours. It is on one night that the housemates get embroiled in an unfortunate accident and find themselves forming an unlikely friendship.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, I thought the story was an addictive and gripping thriller that had me guessing. I particularly loved the character called ‘The Lover’ who played the killer in the book, as he was a deeply troubled character and anonymous, I was constantly looking out for the clues to reveal the identity of the killer and found myself suspecting at least three people at the one time. The only thing that I didn’t like, was the identity of ‘The Lover’ was suddenly exposed to the reader at an earlier stage as I enjoy the “who done it” concept of a good thriller, I was disappointed that it was a revealed and the story was no longer a guessing game. But the story continued to grab my attention throughout, as more twists and turns continued along the way.

‘The Killer Next Door’ is a cleverly written and complex story, that is seen through the perspectives of the troubled and complex characters plus their killer, which makes for interesting reading as they deal with their issues and find themselves forging an unlikely friendship from a young 15 year old to the elderly Vesta unaware that amongst them is a murderer. The content of the story is extremely dark, incredibly graphic and gruesome in places that does makes for unsettling reading and that did even put me of my food for the time that I was reading, and did make me think that maybe the book should come with a warning as it is very disturbing in parts.

A haunting and thrilling read that will have you gripped throughout, ‘The Killer Next Door’ is a thought-provoking book, that will play on your mind and stay with you for days and will have you looking at your neighbours in a different light!

You can buy [amazon_link id=”B00CJBWKRO” target=”_blank” ]the ebook of The Killer Next Door from Amazon [/amazon_link]and will be available to buy from good bookshops from 19th June 2014.