Have you checked the attic lately?

It sounds like something someone in a horror film may say — but it’s also the question that the characters of The Resident may find themselves asking when all is said and done.

I can safely say that The Resident is – and will continue to be – one of my top books of 2020. 

A mix of a psychological thriller and a black comedy, the reader is dropped into the action from the very first page – with the central character, serial killer Thomas Brogan, on the run from the cops. 

Eventually, he finds a run-down end-of-terrace house and takes refuge in the loft space…which is where the games begin. 

Brogan is a character so well-written and carefully crafted that it’s impossible not to want to root for him at least a *little* bit — and, of course, to want to see what he gets up to next. 

Martyn and Colette, the couple at the other end of the row of houses, and Elsie — Brogan’s ‘next door neighbour’ — are among the neighbours who catch the serial killer’s attention. 

And, of course, each have secrets of their own -— which, as the story goes on, add new layers of twists and turns that are impossible to predict. 

The Resident is the kind of book that will have you hooked from the first page until the last (just make sure to avoid the attic for a while afterwards, if you have one).