The Killer Next Door - Alex Marwood

Written by Alex Marwood
Read by Imogen Church
Format: MP3
Bitrate: 64 Kbps
Unabridged

Publisher: Tantor Media, Inc.
Release date: October 28, 2014
Duration: 12:14:44

Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be renting rooms in a dodgy old building for cash-no credit check, no lease. It’s the kind of place you end up when you you’ve run out of other options. The six residents mostly keep to themselves, but one unbearably hot summer night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance. What they don’t know is that one of them is a killer. He’s already chosen his next victim, and he’ll do anything to protect his secret.

A review…At the start of this engrossing standalone from Edgar-winner Marwood, Det. Insp. Merri Cheyne from Scotland Yard questions a young woman, Cheryl Farrell, about the grisly find of human fingers in a freezer inside a rundown boarding house located in a London suburb. As Cheryl confirms, the prints from those fingers belong to a fellow lodger, Lisa Dunne, who witnessed a murder and whom the FBI was seeking to interview. Dunne is not the only victim. Body parts from multiple corpses have surfaced in and around the boarding house, which turns out to be a destination for people with dark and embarrassing pasts that they wish to conceal. Meanwhile, the tenants must contend with break-ins, strange smells, loud music, hidden video-recording equipment in the bathrooms, and pipes clogged with a mysterious substance. Events converge to unite the lodgers in a mutual conspiracy, building up to a well-plotted ending filled with unexpected surprises.

Imogen Church ’s level narration during the most nightmarish chapters casually segues listeners into the macabre, making Marwood’s story all the more terrifying. Church is clearly practiced in voice variation, and delivers several disturbed, and disturbing, male and female characters. The subtle vocal nuances she assigns to each character throughout the reading will keep listeners attentive.