Summary:
Melville Heights is one of the nicest neighborhoods in Bristol, England; home to doctors and lawyers and old-money academics. It’s not the sort of place where people are brutally murdered in their own kitchens. But it is the sort of place where everyone has a secret. And everyone is watching you.
As the headmaster credited with turning around the local school, Tom Fitzwilliam is beloved by one and all—including Joey Mullen, his new neighbor, who quickly develops an intense infatuation with this thoroughly charming yet unavailable man. Joey thinks her crush is a secret, but Tom’s teenaged son Freddie—a prodigy with aspirations of becoming a spy for MI5—excels in observing people and has witnessed Joey behaving strangely around his father.
One of Tom’s students, Jenna Tripp, also lives on the same street, and she’s not convinced her teacher is as squeaky clean as he seems. For one thing, he has taken a particular liking to her best friend and fellow classmate, and Jenna’s mother—whose mental health has admittedly been deteriorating in recent years—is convinced that Mr. Fitzwilliam is stalking her.
Meanwhile, twenty years earlier, a schoolgirl writes in her diary, charting her doomed obsession with a handsome young English teacher named Mr. Fitzwilliam…
In Lisa Jewell’s latest brilliant “bone-chilling suspense” (People) no one is who they seem—and everyone is hiding something. Who has been murdered—and who would have wanted one of their neighbors dead? As “Jewell teases out her twisty plot at just the right pace” (Booklist, starred review), you will be kept guessing until the startling revelation on the very last page.
Review:
Bravo! Lisa Jewell delivers another nail-biting thriller that unfolds with the same alluring anticipation that all of her other books do! This always invites you to never put the book down.
One thing I loved most about this story was that I never really knew who the center of the story was because there were so many interesting stories going on at once and one never lingered long enough for me to quite figure it out. It kept me guessing; On top of the guessing who has been killed!
We meet a group of people living in a town outside of London and get to know them. Intimately!
They get to know one anther intimately.
Some because they choose to, and some don’t even know they are being watched and someone is learning all about them.
I was left clapping my hands at the end.
5 Stars.
I would like to thank the publishers for sending me an ARC of this novel via Netgalley.
The Write Review 