The Neighbour by Fiona Cummins @FionaAnnCummins @panmacmillan #TheNeighbour

A new home. A new start.

It’s all the Lockwoods want.
And on The Avenue, a leafy street in an Essex town near the sea, it seems possible.
But what if what they want isn’t what they get?

On their moving-in day they arrive to a media frenzy.
A serial killer has struck in the woods behind The Avenue.
The police are investigating.
And the neighbours quite clearly have secrets.

With their dream quickly turning into a nightmare, the Lockwoods are watching everyone.
But who’s watching them?

The Neighbour by Fiona Cummins was published in paperback by Pan Macmillan on 3 October 2019.

Having absolutely loved this author's first two books, I was really looking forward to this one; a stand alone novel, quite separate to the first two.

The Lockwoods are moving into 25 The Avenue. It's a new start for them; they are not exactly moving up, but they've moved away. Whilst they had heard about the recent spate of murders carried out by a killer nicknamed The Dollmaker, they really did think that the killer would have been caught and imprisoned by now. They certainly didn't expect to move in amidst a crime scene.
Another body has been found in the woods behind the Avenue, and the killer could be anyone.

Incredibly dark, with a tension that is quite breath taking; The Neighbour is a story that could be set on any suburban street. A road full of ordinary properties, housing seemingly average people ... however, this clever author turns The Avenue into a nightmare street. As the reader learns a little about each resident, the doubts and worries begin to mount up.

Fiona Cummins writes crime so very well; and it's the things that she doesn't actually put into words that are the most chilling. There are scenes that feel like a punch to the gut, but all done with incredible imagery.  She doesn't need to add gore and guts and violence to make the reader gasp; she's far cleverer than that.

An average street, filled with people that we pass every day. Interwoven with the voice of a killer that is so very creepy. And dolls ..... a room full of parts of dolls ..... scared the hell out of me!

Twisted, dark and devilish. The Neighbour took me totally by surprise; it hooked me from the opening scenes and gripped me right up until the outstanding reveal at the end.

Fiona Cummins is a genius.  This is masterful crime fiction, full of suspense and darkness.




Fiona Cummins is an award-winning former Daily Mirror show business journalist and a graduate of the Faber Academy Writing A Novel course.  
Rattle, her debut novel, has been translated into several languages and received widespread critical acclaim from authors including Val McDermid, Lee Child and Martina Cole. Marcel Berlins wrote in The Times: 'Amid the outpouring of crime novels, Rattle is up there with the best of them.'


Fiona was selected for McDermid's prestigious New Blood panel at the 2017 Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival, where her novel was nominated for a Dead Good Reader Award for Most Exceptional Debut.


Rattle is now being adapted into a six-part TV series by the producers of Golden Globe-nominated Miss Sloane.

A sequel, The Collector, was published in February 2018 and David Baldacci described it as 'A crime novel of the very first order'. 

Her third novel - standalone thriller The Neighbour - was published in April 2019.

When Fiona is not writing, she can be found on Twitter, eating biscuits or walking her dog. She lives in Essex with her family.

Twitter @FionaAnnCummins