Lowland Way is a suburban paradise. Located in a respectable suburb eight miles out of central London, it’s a leafy, quiet street with beautiful homes, friendly neighbours and lovely parks nearby. Naomi Morgan, local powerhouse and mother of two, even introduced a special initiative to get the local children outdoors more. Each weekend, Lowland Way is closed off to cars, and kids play freely in the street like their parents did when they were young.
But then a new couple moves in to Lowland Way. Although the other residents do their best to welcome Darren and Jodie to the street – Naomi and her husband, Ralph, bring biscotti, and Sissy, the local B&B owner, visits with a bouquet of hand-picked crocuses – their kind gestures fall flat. Darren and Jodie are ungrateful and rude, and things only get worse from there.
First, the couple knocks down a historic dividing wall that the Lowland Way residents fought to save just a few years before. Then they begin noisy home renovations, and soon their front garden is filled with bulging bin bags and junk. They play loud music at all hours of the day and night, upsetting their neighbours, the Kendalls, who can’t get their baby to sleep with all the noise. And that’s not to mention the fact that Darren seems to be running an illegal used-car business in the back garden.
As the other residents of Lowland Way find their quiet, respectable lives turned upside down by their new neighbours, tempers flare and tensions escalate, and soon threats of violence are being exchanged. Then, early one Saturday morning, things take a much darker turn, and residents wake to the news of a horrific death on the street. Everyone seems shaken and everyone claims innocence, but the police quickly establish that the death was no accident – and suddenly, everyone is a suspect…
The latest novel from Louise Candlish, Those People is a dark, gripping and perfectly paced page-turner. Candlish has made her mark with bestsellers including The Second Husband and Our House, and this new novel reaffirms her status as one of the top writers on the domestic thriller scene. Cleverly told through flashbacks and police interviews, Those People is a slow-burning, utterly absorbing read, and as each character becomes a suspect in the Lowland Way murder, motivations and alibis are questioned and cast into doubt, and the tension builds and builds right until the gasp-out-loud twist at the end.
In last year’s Our House, Candlish played compellingly with the notion of a ‘perfect life’ – how hard it can be to achieve, and how easily it can all come crashing down – and she further explores this idea in Those People. With their manicured flowerbeds, well-behaved children and stable jobs, the residents of Lowland Way pride themselves on having it all, but their lives unravel completely when their new neighbours move in. Candlish takes us on a fascinating deep dive into the human psyche, too, exploring what drives respectable people to do bad things.
A suspenseful, compulsively readable thriller with great characters and an unexpected twist in the tail, Those People takes a sharp look at middle-class prejudice and deftly explores the darker side of suburbia. A perfect winter read for fans of Liane Moriarty, B.A. Paris and Shari Lapena.
About the author:
Louise Candlish is the bestselling author of twelve novels. Her thriller Our House was a number one bestseller in paperback, ebook and audiobook and is shortlisted for a 2019 British Book Award – Crime & Thriller Book of the Year. It has been optioned for TV by Death in Paradise producers Red Planet Pictures, and was picked as a Book of the Year 2018 by the Washington Post, Publishers Weekly, Real Simple, the Guardian, the Daily Mail, the Sunday Express, Red and Heat. Louise lives in London with her family.
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