The New Neighbour by Miranda Rijks

 

Review

It is strange that we people, although live in a society, a community and a family, should live together in harmony, but they do not succeed.  In this book, this community is represented by The Close, which consists of only five houses, five families, the environment is idyllic and harmonious, yet no one is happy, neighbors hate and watch each other with suspicion.  Harmony is not complete within families either, there is cheating, jealousy and constant suspicion everywhere.  The experience from this book is also that we live in a community, yet we are very alone, we can only count on ourselves.

I’m always a little worried to start a book written by a woman, a woman is the protagonist, and through her eyes and thoughts we can follow the story.  And lately, these books are mostly written for women as well, as most of the readers come from them.  But now my fear was unfounded, I could hide in Isobel's skin, the character was sympathetic, I was excited that by the end of the book everything would turn out well.

The story is a standard suburban thriller with intrigue, silenced sins and secrets.  The author of the book masterfully adds tension, every word, every sentence is in place, everything serves the purpose of maintaining interest and entertaining.

The events and the twists were a bit predictable, but that didn’t make the book boring.  I didn’t always agree with Isobel’s actions because maybe she was the only one who loved her family unconditionally and cared about her neighbors as well.  All she wanted was for her to be reciprocated, for her opinion to be listened to, and for her interests to be taken into account.  Unfortunately, that’s why she’s the one the others are watching with suspicion, rumors about her, all about what’s wrong.  Of course, such is the police, who still prove that it is not always in their best interest to find the real culprit, but only to arrest someone, and then it will be up to the judiciary to decide whether he is guilty or he is a victim.  While a good law enforcement organization should work to always find the perpetrator of the crime, the court should have only one task left to determine what punishment the perpetrator should receive.

To sum up the previous ones, this is an unputdownable, suspenseful suburban thriller with a bit of social criticism.

Thanks to Netgalley and Inkubator Books for allowing me to read this book!