Cynthia has a secret that she hasn’t revealed to her longtime husband or their seventeen year old daughter. But it all starts to go horribly wrong when Cynthia’s daughter is taken by a villain from her past. Can Cynthia save her daughter and repair her marriage ripped apart by her secretive nature? What exactly does Cynthia’s past include and why did she feel the need to hide it from those closest to her? All these questions are answered in the new thriller, The Quiet Neighbor, told alternately through flashback and present day chapters.
After reading some incredibly original tales by J.D. Barker, The Quiet Neighbor was surprisingly formulaic. There are three substantial reveals in the story. Unfortunately, I figured them all out early on thanks to some too obvious foreshadowing. Both the pacing and the characters didn’t work for me either.
The supposedly level-headed lawyer, Cynthia, spends the majority of the book cluelessly panicking. She also gets a lot more access to the local police’s crime scenes than seems likely, even with her FBI friend’s help. Due to these choices, the book’s pacing sags substantially throughout the middle of the book while we watch Cynthia just spinning her wheels. None of the other characters are sympathetic either but mostly because we don’t know much about them. Cynthia’s husband and daughter are barely fleshed out until late in the book.
Overall, The Quiet Neighbor was an okay thriller/family drama with few surprises or deviations from the usual plot. 3 stars. Read the author’s much better books, The Fourth Monkey or A Caller’s Game instead.
Thanks to NetGalley and Hampton Creek Press for providing me with an advanced review copy.