The Killer Next Door

From Amazon:

Alex Marwood’s back with a brilliant, tightly paced thriller that will keep you up at night and make you ask yourself: just how well do you know your neighbors? Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret. If they didn't, they wouldn't be renting rooms in a dodgy old building for cash—no credit check, no lease. It’s the kind of place you end up when you you've run out of other options. The six residents mostly keep to themselves, but one unbearably hot summer night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance. What they don’t know is that one of them is a killer. He’s already chosen his next victim, and he’ll do anything to protect his secret.

My Thoughts:

From the very beginning Alex Marwood show more hooks you. Cher, teenage runaway, is interviewed at the police station, giving her statement about a recent gruesome discovery – then we are thrown back in time to start meeting the people involved…the residents of No 23. Knowing that doom is approaching for at least one, you just want to shout. “Stop!"...“Don’t do that”. “RUN!" …and yet you are never entirely sure whether you are directing this at the right people... very clever.

Putting that side of it away for a moment – the more frightening part if you like – you can also look at this story as a soundbite from life. Cher, teenager, thief, but also someone you would want on your side. Collette, hiding from danger not realising that she faces far worse in her chosen sanctuary, Vesta, pensioner, is mother and confidante to all. Then you have a handome asylum seeker Hossein, the lonely Thomas and the musically minded Gerard, all watched over by the repugnant landlord Preece. Different views, different lives, all tied together by their mutual living space, you could easily read this as a cautionary tale of the ups and downs of life…and somewhere in that marvelous mix a killer lurks…hiding in plain sight. From start to finish this is a terrific page turner, a look at the dark heart that lurks in us all and a compelling, often emotional, always refreshing tale of humanity. show less

I thought The Killer Next Door was a fascinating combination of literary fiction and mystery with a super-creepy serial killer that only a Criminal Minds fan could love. Marwood's book brings the denizens of sketchy South London house full of pay by the month flats dramatically to life. There's an immigrant, a runaway, an elderly woman unwilling to part with her rent control, a woman on the run from a moment in the wrong place at the wrong time, and, oh yeah, there's the normal looking guy that's actually a serial killer hard at work mummifying the remains of his kills within the confines of his flat. If you're looking for a thrill a minute, twisty sort of book that you won't be able to put down, this might not be it. It's no difficult show more task to guess the killer. However, The Killer Next Door is a convincing story of how a houseful of strangers with secrets becomes a family, united against their scumbag landlord, all with a side of perfectly twisted serial killer. I loved these characters, was taken in by the fringe of society where they exist, and loved the black humor that added a little levity to a dark story that doesn't end up seeming so dark at all. I love Alex Marwood's unique deeper take on the traditional crime thriller and look forward to whatever she comes up with next. show less

Reading The Killer Next Door is like watching honey come out of the bottle. It's slow at first but you know all the deliciousness is worth the wait. You know that the killer is someone who lives in the house with all of the characters; however, you have no idea of who these people are or what they are hiding. There were some very creepy and sick parts of the book (parts were read over my lunch hour, which was a very bad idea). I will now have to go back and read The Wicked Girls.

I read Alex Marwood's debut novel, The Wicked Girls, last year and immediately knew she would be on my 'must read' list. Well, her second novel, The Killer Next Door, is even better than her first book.

23 Beulah Grove is a run down London house, divided into six tiny rooms and overseen by a decidedly creepy landlord. Each of the six residents have their own stories - and their own secrets. So the house suits - cash rent, no references, no questions

You'll be hooked from the opening pages as we slowly come to know Lisa, newly moved into number 23. And as she meets the others, we know something she doesn't - one of them is a killer. An accident at the house one night pushes the residents into an uneasy alliance -and gives them all one more show more secret to keep.

Oh man, can Marwood write an absolutely creepy, addicting, thrill ride of a read. Each new chapter adds another clue as to who the killer might be. The killer has his own chapters - his mindset and crime(s) are suitably gruesome - and quite imaginative. (fair warning to gentle readers)

Marwood paints vivid pictures of this run down house and its occupants. I had a clear picture of the dank basement, the underlit hallways and the peeling wallpaper. Each of the players is just as vividly depicted and I often found myself holding my breath along with the characters.

The plotting is ingenious and absolutely kept me off balance - I thought I had sussed things out, but was proven wrong. There are twists, turns and herrings everywhere. Along with some darkly humourous moments as well.

I think this would actually make a great movie. Absolutely recommended - I can't wait to read what Alex Marwood writes next. show less

I went back and forth with this book. Was immediately interested in the bookstore, shelved it for a bit while finishing a few other books, got into it once I started it a few weeks later, forgot about it for several months, then picked it up again and then read it in two days.

There is a great deal of “The Killer Next Door” that is standard thriller. The cast is chock full of people with mysterious pasts, and until the identity of the killer is revealed – they are all suspects. But starting with when that reveal happens (not at the end) and the depth that many (not all) of the characters are given – this is more than just a thriller.

The story takes place in a rooming house, one managed by a very odd and sinister man, and show more inhabited by people who all have stories – few of them known by the other tenants.

Vesta has lived at 23 Beulah Grove all her life. She’s desperately hanging on to the only life’s she’s ever known, even as she wishes for something different. “She’s been seeing her face in this carved wood frame for the whole of her life. Still feels a sense of profound shock every time she glances into it and sees an almost-seventy-year-old woman staring back. Where did it all go? Did I really do so little, that I’m still living here, surrounded by reminders of my parents’ tenancy before me – the Waterford vase, Mum’s collection of ceramic cottages, the framed photos of long-dead ancestors on the tallboy, The Crying Boy in the frame on the wall, Nan’s good teaset behind the glass of the display cabinet – with hardly a mark of my own life added on top?” Vesta is not the standard nosy old lady character. She’s both terrified and brave, yearning for and fighting against change, and both utterly alone and the one tenant trying to create a family.

There is also Collette – a woman trying to hide away in someone else’s flat, Cher – scraping together some sort of life as she tries to find a way to a better future, Hossein – seeking both asylum and escape from his former life, and Thomas – the neighbor who no one really notices and who then plays the biggest role when a terrible accident changes everything.

“He stands awkwardly above them all, looking about for somewhere to site and radiating an air of suppressed astonishment that the chairs have run out. I bet he’s one of those people, thinks Collette, who always gives off a faint air of reproach, one of those people who’s never truly happy unless he’s hard done by.”

This book is not for the faint of heart. Some of the descriptions of murder and the actions taken with the victims are truly sickening. But the way the story is written and both the plot and the characters revealed make this a great read and a more than average thriller. show less

Alex Marwood’s gristly thriller The Killer Next Door holds back no punches when it comes to the grimier, slimier aspects of humanity. A group of residents in South London rent rooms from “The Landlord,” a portly man who has no qualms about invading personal space. The residents – Vesta, Hossein, Collette, Cher, Thomas, and Gerard – all have their quirks, of course, but the most interesting have to be Thomas, Collette, and Cher.

Thomas is referred to as “The Lover,” a quiet, pensive man who also happens to be a serial killer. The pungent odors from his hobby of mummifying the women he “loves” permeate through the old house, but the residents dismiss it as odd, but not alarming. Thomas presents one side to the world: a show more hard-working, sensitive guy who is eager to help his neighbors. Inside of his apartment, however, he engages in some rather distasteful habits – let’s just say those habits regularly clog up the drains. Marwood does not shy away from vivid descriptions of Thomas’s diversions; for instance: “Jecca left the house in a series of carrier bags, flesh falling from bone like a five-hour pot roast…Katrina, her body cavities cleared more studiously, was a steep learning curve. His incision, down the front of the abdomen the way a pathologist would do it, left the trunk loose and floppy, and her nose was ruined by his clumsy attempts to remove the brain with the crochet hook. The parichistic entry, via a slit in the left-hand side, though it means having to plunge himself arm-deep in viscera, produces a neater, more human-shaped final product” (93).

Collette, also known as Lisa, is on the run from her former boss after she accidentally witnesses a horrifying incident. Three years and a duffel bag of money later, she stumbles upon 23 Beulah Grove. Collette only wants to keep a quiet profile and visit her mother in the nursing home periodically; unwittingly, she is drawn into a series of crimes and intrigues far beyond her imagination.

Cher drinks, smokes, and steals; her days pass by in a yellow haze of fear, hunger, and longing. She is only fifteen years old and is determined not to return to the foster home, even if it means robbing men much larger and stronger than her. Her heart, though, is pure, and she forms an unlikely friendship with Collette and Vesta.

When a culminating event brings the residents together, they learn more than they bargained for about some of their neighbors. Marwood is a master at sketching out characters, then filling them in subtly with unique details. If you can handle a bit of gristle and fat, then definitely dive into this contemporary thriller fiction.

My only qualm is that there is a plethora of British terms throughout the novel – of course, that makes sense since the novel is set in London. At times it was distracting and frustrating to not know what certain terms meant in context…but that is my own failing, not Marwood’s.

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I'd never read, or even heard of Alex Marwood, when I picked up this book on a whim at the library. And karma must have been good to me because I was in for a treat.

There's no suspense in who the killer is but just the sick and twisted way Marwood spins this tale is absolutely enGROSSing. The characters are all so well drawn out and interesting, I found myself interested in each of their stories. The only hiccup I had in this book was my lack of knowledge of British slang. But I felt like it just added a whole other level of interest to this story and pulled me further into the world of Beulah Grove.

Before I was even done with this book I put in a request at the library for her Edgar Award Winner, The Wicked Girls.