Monday With Kaye: "The Killer Next Door" by Alex Marwood (Review by Kaye George)

This first Monday in March finds us kicking off a new segment— “Monday with Kaye.” For as long as she is willing to do it, each Monday will bring a review or something else from Kaye. Last week she reviewed Designated Daughters by Margaret Maron. This week she considers The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood.

The Killer Next Door by Alex Marwood

This novel is about the people who live at 23 Beulah Grove in London. Does that sound innocent? Don’t read this at night, alone.

Just the landlord alone, gave me the creeps. In the Prologue, some body parts have been found in the freezer. A couple of the fingers match up with a young missing woman, Lisa Dunne. DI Cheyne finds out the residents called her Collette. But where is the rest of her? And just what is going on in that place?

The reader goes back in time and follows Lisa from her job at the bar (with lap dancing), where she finds her boss dead and, knowing too much about the financial dealings, snatches the money and runs for her life.

She lands in an ideal hiding place, the rundown rooming house, full of losers and a cat called Psycho. There’s Gerard, the music teacher, who never interacts with anyone there; Cher, the Scrumper, a friendly, out-going, pretty young black woman; old Vesta, who wants only to be able to live by the sea, where she takes an annual visit; Hossein, the intensely handsome Iranian immigrant; and that Landlord. The problem is, the reader doesn’t know which one is The Lover, a person who kills young women residents and mummifies them, until they decay and he must replace them.

Even stranger things start happening. Vesta’s basement apartment is broken into, the stinky drains, always a problem, are getting impossible. But the obese, sweating, lecherous landlord won’t fix anything until…well, things happen and it all comes crashing down.

Deliciously creepy book!

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Kaye George, Author of  Eine Kleine Murder for Suspense Magazine