The Family Across the Street: A totally unputdownable psychological thriller with a shocking twist Paperback – 4 Aug. 2021

The Family Across The Street is a gripping standalone thriller by Nicole Trope and one that I found difficult to put down once I’d started it.Set in Sydney, Australia on one of the hottest days of the year, the story begins with a bang (literally) as gunshots are heard from one of the quiet residential houses. Something dreadful is happening behind the door of the Wests house where Katherine and John live with their 5 year old twins.With multiple narrators, the reader is taken on a fast-paced journey retracing the events that led to the gunshot. Katherine – the devoted mother of twins, trying to stay alive and keep her children safe during this situation, Logan – an innocent passerby who is trying to stay on the right side of the law, but feels compelled to help and Gladys – the nosy neighbour who knows something is going on next door and is determined to find out what.I raced through this book, loving each and every character and chapter, my heart in my throat as the tragedy slowly unfolds. As a mother, my heart ached for Katherine, determined to protect her children at whatever cost. Getting to know Gladys was wonderful once her layers had been peeled back and everyone should have a nosy neighbour like her. However, my favourite character had to be Logan, the delivery driver, who finds himself drawn back to the house convinced someone is in trouble.Overall, this is a great story, full of believable and fascinating characters and I am delighted when my amateur armchair detective skills let me down, because I really hadn’t worked out what or why had led to this tragedy.

“She opened her arms and I showed her the gun. I could have made a different choice. I could have stepped into those arms and changed my life.”Something is very wrong at 24 Hogarth Street, yet the two people who spot the air of menace and danger have a history with the police and so will they be taken seriously.Gladys stares at her neighbour’s house, where there is no sign of movement and, the closed blinds look strangely ominous and secretive. Gladys instinctively knows something is wrong, but she has contacted the police 12 times this year already and now they see her as an interfering neighbour.Logan, a reformer criminal and delivery driver seeks to deliver a computer to the house where Katherine lives with her husband John and five-year-old twins. Yet he has encountered nothing but obstacles in his desire to help whoever the woman inside the house is, and by the time he finds out if something is or is not going on, because she will not open the door, “… he could be back in jail just for daring to exist after a prison sentence”The story is interspersed with feelings from the man holding Katherine and her two children at gun point. He is going to kill her and will not spare the children, if need be, but it is clear he is harbouring a lot of pain and hurt and believes it may be necessary “…. to blow up everything around you just to prove you’ve been hurt”, because one day you "... realise that the love of your life no longer thinks you’re the love of her life" but really this man is a resentful rage machine and he is prepared to punish her.This was a pleasant read from the beginning and then the gear changed in the second part of the book, the suspense was at a different level, the anticipation was palatable and when I read through the plot and the twist, I almost wanted to go back to the beginning of the book to grasp what it was I had missed in the first place. A great read and highly recommended.

I did enjoy reading this book, only bug was the constant referring to the 'Heat and the 'Cicadas' over and over.

Gladys notices when the children aren't taken to school, when the curtains aren't opened on a sunny day and she wonders if the mother could be unwell. Her husband, fed up with his wife interfering with everyone tries to put her off going over to investigate, says with temperatures like this everyone had been advised to keep curtains closed to keep the house cool.Logan, a heavily tattooed delivery driver, an ex con trying to make good is in the area that day. He had struggled to get a job because of his appearance and his past,and he's been given a chance by his brother in law but knows deep down his brother in law doesn't trust him.Quite a pacy read. Written well, I could imagine being in the extreme heat of the day, the still air, with the lack of air conditioning and the mothering instinct that just takes over.

Ok

Good read

Seems to drag on a bit

Enjoyed this book great storyline