Christopher Ransom – The People Next Door

When the seemingly perfect Render family move in next door to the Nash family strange things start to happen. Mick Nash quickly realises that all is not as it appears to be and starts to take steps to protect his family. But what is the Render’s secret?

I enjoyed Christopher Ransom’s previous two novels so I was looking forward to this one and it jumped up my reading pile. The premise was interesting and the story was fairly creepy. I liked the different viewpoints from the various characters. The pacing was good most of the time although there were a couple of places where it did feel a little slow.

Whilst the characterisation was pretty good I didn’t particularly like any of the characters which was a shame as it meant that I didn’t care too much what happened to them. This is probably what let the book down for me. I like to have some kind of emotional investment in the characters that I am reading about.

The cover and the book blurb mention a big twist to the book. I actually liked the twist and didn’t manage to guess it. My favourite part of the book was the ending, I thought it was well done and interesting and could make for a good sequel.

If you’re new to Christopher Ransom then I would advise against starting with this one (start with The Birthing House) as it is definitely not his best. I did enjoy it, just not as much as I enjoyed his previous work.