Review: THE KILLER NEXT DOOR

The Killer Next Door

by Alex Marwood

Trade Paperback

Penguin (October 28, 2014)

Alex Marwood’s first book, The Wicked Girls (which won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original), was one of my favorite novels of 2013. Shifting back and forth in time, it focused on two women who killed a child together when they were both eleven years old, grew up in separate prisons, and haven’t seen each other since. As adults with new identities and very different lives, they come together again with disastrous consequences. The Wicked Girls is dark and probing, an exquisite psychological suspense novel.  

The Killer Next Door, Marwood’s second novel, is a different sort of crime story, creepy and sometimes grotesquely comic, but no less absorbing. The reader learns from the opening pages that the police are investigating the discovery of body parts in a decrepit South London rooming house and that a missing resident named Collette is believed to be a victim—but not the only one. The story then moves back in time to reveal what led up to this point.

Collette, in her thirties, is on the run after witnessing a murder. Using a fake name (she is actually Lisa Dunne) and carrying a bag of cash that she never lets out of her sight, she returns to England after years abroad to see her dying mother. She takes refuge in the anonymity of the rooming house, although it means putting up with a repugnant, lecherous landlord, and moves into the quarters vacated by a young woman who has mysteriously vanished.  The other females in residence are Cher, a teenage runaway who survives through petty theft, and Vesta, the independent but motherly woman in her sixties who occupies a basement flat. The male tenants are Hossein, a handsome Iranian seeking political asylum, and two nondescript bachelors named Thomas and Gerard. 

One of the men is a serial killer who calls himself The Lover. He keeps his victims’ corpses in his flat as quiet companions until they begin to produce an odor that can’t be covered up with air freshener. Then he dismembers the bodies and disposes of the pieces around the house and down the toilets. The place is plagued with backed-up drains and a stench accentuated by the oppressive heat of summer. When Collette moves in, The Lover is looking for a fresh victim.

The secretive tenants tend to keep to themselves, but one hot night an accident brings them together and sets in motion a continually surprising string of events.

Marwood has the same merciless eye and penetrating insight into human behavior that distinguishes Ruth Rendell’s writing. Although the men are less well realized, the three women are vividly drawn and memorable. 

This novel is not for the easily repulsed, and at times the descriptions of disgusting sights, smells, and actions seem repetitive. Yet—again like Rendell—Marwood finds a macabre humor in all these goings-on. 

In the final pages, Marwood refrains from escalating the sense of dread into a predictable bloodbath and instead takes a turn that leads to a totally satisfying conclusion. Despite the events leading up to it, the ending allows the reader to close the book with a smile and lingering thoughts about the meaning of friendship and family.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Reading Psychological Suspense

Psychological suspense is what I most enjoy reading, but despite the popularity of Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girls and a flood of books labeled psychological suspense and promoted as “The next Gone Girl!” I have trouble finding enough of it to feed my habit.

I’m not sure many people, including New York publishers, know what it is.

When I asked friends if they’d read any psychological suspense novels they could recommend, a surprising number suggested murder mysteries and gory thrillers. And some books labeled “chilling psychological suspense” by their publishers turn out to be either (1) slow-moving mysteries in which the characters think a lot or (2) pallid thrillers with shallow characters and write-by-numbers plot twists. (“It’s page 100, time to throw in a threatening phone call or e-mail.”) Many otherwise excellent crime novels are also erroneously labeled psychological suspense.

The blending of subgenres that’s so common these days contributes to the confusion. Many modern mysteries and thrillers contain more insight into human behavior than genre novels of the past. Tana French, for example, demonstrates exquisite understanding of emotion and motivation—but that doesn’t make her novels psychological suspense. She writes superb mysteries about cops solving murders, and the investigation drives every plot. I’ve seen them described as “psychological mysteries” and believe that’s an accurate label.

A psychological suspense novel may contain murder, but crime-solving isn’t the driving force. The focus is on the emotional and mental impact of events on the protagonist, and on the character’s struggle to survive what is happening to him or her. The pace is usually slower, with less physical action, fewer of the jolting twists that mark modern thrillers. Suspense builds gradually, until the sense of dread becomes overwhelming. Something terrible is going to happen, but neither the protagonist nor the reader knows what to expect or when it will come. Fear of an unknown, unpredictable danger is at the heart of psychological suspense, and tone is everything. People and situations are never what they seem.

Three of my favorite authors of psychological suspense are Thomas H. Cook, Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, and Lisa Unger. My favorite Cook novel is an older one, Mortal Memory, although I enjoy everything he publishes. The Barbara Vine novel A Dark-Adapted Eye is a masterpiece, and such Rendell books as The Bridesmaid perfectly fit the definition of psychological suspense. Unger is brilliant at creating damaged characters caught up in nightmare scenarios. In her latest book, In the Blood, echoes from a young woman’s horrific childhood threaten to wreck her carefully constructed present life, with a young boy serving as the agent of destruction.

One of the most engrossing psychological suspense novels I’ve read in the last few years is Until I Go to Sleep by S.J. Watson, told from the viewpoint of a woman who awakens every morning with no memory of her identity and past. Her struggle to retain some scraps of memory from day to day, and to discover what obliterated her life, is riveting and terrifying. The isolated heroine, doubting her own sanity, has long been a staple in the subgenre, but Watson made a stock character into something wholly original.

Domestic turmoil is fertile ground for writers of psychological suspense, and some of the most compelling recent novels in the subgenre are tales of families trapped in terrifying situations.

The Cry by Australian Helen Fitzgerald is an outstanding novel that deserves the kind of acclaim and broad readership that Gone Girl has received. Rather than fitting tightly into a genre category, it deals with issues familiar to most people and succeeds as a novel on every level. Throughout the book, we know that Joanna, the Scottish protagonist, is on trial in Australia, but exactly what she has done isn’t clear. The story that unfolds follows the characters through the kind of ordinary domestic dramas that can lead, with one bad decision, to catastrophe. Joanna fell in love and had a baby with Alistair, a journalist married to another woman. Alistair’s wife, now his ex, has taken their teenage daughter back to the family’s home country, Australia, which forces him to travel there if he wants to see his first child. During a grueling flight from Glasgow to Australia, the baby cries constantly and Joanna, ill and exhausted, tries to calm him while Alistair blissfully naps in his seat. Other passengers, annoyed by the baby’s crying, become verbally abusive toward the harried Joanna, and she erupts into a tirade. Her behavior serves as evidence against her later, when the baby disappears in Australia and the case becomes an international sensation. The reader knows the truth, knows how much Joanna and Alistair are hiding, and the torment Joanna endures is harrowing. This is an unforgettable story.

The Lie of You by Jane Lythell also revolves around a mother, a baby, and an intruder in a happy family’s life. Kathy, an architectural magazine editor, has no idea that a junior colleague, a recently hired Finnish beauty named Heja, hides a raging jealousy behind her cool exterior. Telling the story from both women’s viewpoints, the author lets the reader watch as Heja carries out her plan to destroy Kathy’s marriage and career. Why is she doing it? The answer lies in the past and involves devastating secrets.

Until You’re Mine by Samantha Hayes is trickier, challenging the reader to figure out what’s really going on. To the observer, Claudia’s life is wonderful: she’s dedicated to her job as a social worker, she’s happily married with two stepsons she loves, and she’s pregnant with her first baby. When she hires Zoe as a nanny and helper, the household becomes increasingly unsettled and nasty cracks open in the perfect façade. This novel has an ending that made me go back and start again to see how the author did it.

This Is the Water by Yannick Murphy doesn’t live up to the publisher’s promise of “a fast-paced story of murder, adultery, parenthood, and romance” but it has other qualities that make it memorable. A group of parents in a small New England community become entangled in one another’s lives as their young daughters train for a swim meet at “the facility.” Annie, who stands out as the protagonist in a swirl of viewpoints, has two daughters on the swim team and a husband who has lost interest in her. While she’s in the bleachers flirting with a friend’s husband, a killer—who gets his own viewpoint—watches one of the girls. The girl is later murdered, and the killing triggers a series of events that test relationships and lead to a stunning conclusion. This book’s biggest handicap—or its greatest pleasure, depending on your taste— is the way the author tells the story. She begins many sentences, perhaps a majority, with “This is” and uses second person for Annie’s scenes, as in: “This is you, waiting for your daughters…” I found the device so intrusive that it almost ruined the book for me. I also learned more than I ever wanted to know about children’s competitive swimming and the petty jealousies of “swim moms.” Yet the final section of the novel is excellent, and the book overall has many moments of striking insight that give it depth and resonance.

That, above all, is what I look for in psychological suspense: depth and resonance.

Saying Goodbye to Rachel

When I wrote The Heat of the Moon, I never dreamed I would write five more books about Rachel Goddard, a young veterinarian who discovers that everything she believed about her family was a lie.

I thought it was a stand-alone psychological suspense novel. When my agent failed to sell it in New York despite strong interest from editors at two major publishers, I gave up hope that it would ever see print. But Poisoned Pen Press bought it, it won the Agatha Award for Best First Novel of 2006, and I found I had more to say about Rachel. 

Her story continued in Disturbing the Dead, Broken Places, Under the Dog Star, Bleeding Through, and Poisoned Ground. I was able to dramatize Rachel’s evolution from the frightened young woman in The Heat of the Moon to the strong, fulfilled person she is at the end of Poisoned Ground.

Now I feel I’ve told her story and have no more to say. Yes, I could go on finding mysteries for her to get involved in, but the most important part of her story, the arc of her personal development, has been told. Some writers produce one fresh, entertaining book after another in a long series, but I don’t think I could do that. Rachel’s psychological development was always what I cared about most, and mysteries without that element would feel hollow to me. I won’t say I’ll never write about Rachel (and Tom Bridger) again, but for

now I need to move on. 

Japanese edition

 

My great love is psychological suspense, and I want to get back to it and write more books in the vein of The Heat of the Moon. I love stories about individuals caught up in events beyond their control and understanding, struggling to make sense of what’s happening to them and ultimately finding their way to an answer. I’ve learned a lot about suspense from writing the Rachel books — my ability to maintain tension and suspense from beginning to end has always been praised by reviewers and readers alike — and I think I can put what I’ve learned to good use in something new.

I appreciate all my readers, and your praise and encouragement have meant  

the world to me. I hope you’ll be willing to read what I write in the future. Striking out in a new direction is scary, I’ll admit. Even a series with a modest following is a sure thing, and leaving it behind makes me feel as if I’m back at square one, starting over. But I trust that if you liked the Rachel books you’ll also like the next novel I produce.

Mass market paperback

If you haven’t read my Rachel Goddard books, they aren’t going anywhere. They’re all available in print, e-book, and audio formats, and they’re in many libraries. Please visit my website at http://www.sandraparshall.com for more information and reviews of all the books. Start with the first (available for only 99 cents as an e-book download) and read them in order to better understand Rachel and her personal journey. If you enjoy them, please let me know! Nothing bolsters a writer’s spirits while she’s sitting alone at the computer more than a complimentary note from a reader.

The Rachel Goddard Mysteries in order

The Heat of the Moon

“Mesmerizing.” —Publishers Weekly

“A captivating tale of suspense.” —Booklist

“Stylish, original, compulsively readable... Sandra Parshall explores the darkest side of family love and longing with pitch-perfect, highly engaging characters and a stunning end-game surprise. ” -- Judith Kelman, bestselling author of psychological suspense

Disturbing the Dead

“Fast-paced, chilling, and compulsively readable.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Edge-of-the-seat suspense.” —Library Journal starred review

“A terrific, tangled skein of unraveling family secrets and hidden murders, beautifully plotted and excitingly told.” —Diana Gabaldon, author of the international bestselling Outlander series

Broken Places

“Grips readers with a suspenseful plot that will leave them breathless.” —Library Journal starred review

“A suspenseful tale distinguished by its sharp prose.” —Publishers Weekly starred review

“Broken Places is a tense exploration of how past acts can come back to haunt the present. It kept me guessing till the very end.” —Margaret Maron, bestselling author of the Judge Deborah Knott mysteries

Under the Dog Star

“Spine-chilling tension from cover to cover.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Tense and compelling…one of the un-put-downable reads of the year.” —Deborah Crombie, author of the bestselling Gemma James/Duncan Kincaid mysteries

Bleeding Through

“Combines nerve-wracking suspense with a twisty mystery.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Marvelous storytelling.” —Julia Spencer-Fleming, author of the bestselling Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Mysteries

Poisoned Ground

“Parshall expertly maintains tension until the surprising conclusion.” —Kirkus Reviews

“A fast-paced plot with plenty of false leads keeps the reader turning the pages.” —Publishers Weekly

“Parshall perfectly plumbs the well of humanity in a small town, where longstanding feuds and deep-seated jealousies drive dark deeds—from backstabbing and betrayal all the way to bloody murder.” —Erin Hart, author of the Nora Gavin/Cormac Maguire mysteries