Linda sits in her kitchen, wondering if this is all there is – pushing the Hoover around and cooking fish fingers. It’s a far cry from the glamorous lifestyle she sees in the glossy catalogues coming through the door for the house’s previous occupant. Terry isn’t perfect – he picks his teeth, tracks dirt through the house and spends most of his time in front of the TV. But that seems fairly standard – until he starts keeping odd hours at work, at around the same time young women start to go missing in the neighbourhood.
Ok. Goodreads called this book ‘delightfully sinister’ and it is. But it’s a bit of a slow burn. It’s best I don’t say too much. In the middle I wished for more clues, more pace, and less quirk, but I hung in there because I know Joanna Cannon to be a clever writer.
There’s nothing complex in this one–simple narration about mundane things, echoes of a trauma, reports of a serial killer, lots about cleaning, but–there is the dawning realisation as a reader, that there might be an unreliable narrator at work and all is not as it seems.
I didn’t find this as funny, engaging, or wise as The Trouble with Goats and Sheep which in my opinion was top notch. It was more like Three Things about Elsie, a nice easy read where the outcome made you rethink the whole book. A twisty tidy ending indeed!
So far I’ve only read fiction from this brilliant author. Her work as a psychiatrist, as well as her interest in people on the fringes of society, continue to inspire her writing. I still want to read her memoir of stories about struggles in the health care system called Breaking and Mending.
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