The author of Our House returns with a tale about Lowland Way, a bourgeois English neighborhood where quiet and upwardly mobile residents get thrown for a loop when loud and crude Darren and Jodie move in, ratcheting up tensions and opening the door to violence.
... highly entertaining ... Candlish forcefully builds the tension in Those People until it reaches a crescendo that is as frightening as it is believable. It’s understandable that these people might crack under the strain of the emotional turmoil that Darren wreaks on his new neighbors ... Those People skillfully avoids plotting cliches as Candlish’s second novel doesn’t take the easy way out. Domestic thrillers have emerged as one of the hottest trends in the mystery genre and, as she did in her debut Our House, Candlish knows how to turn everyday situations sinister.
It’s a premise ripe for suspense and Candlish delivers ... Those People takes Candlish’s usual themes—the hundreds of small things that fracture relationships, the secrets kept between families and friends, the endless pursuit of skyrocketing property values—and applies them to a whole neighborhood ... Candlish keeps the narrative flowing smoothly. Her talent at juggling multiple characters and voices...flourishes here ... There are a few twists and a nice, nasty surprise at the end, but it all feels organic and earned—Candlish lets her characters do the work and seal their own fates, and there’s a certain enjoyment in watching them do so, even when the reader can all too easily see themselves making the same mistakes ... Those People should cement her reputation not just as a master of domestic suspense but as a top-notch thriller writer.
Louise Candlish...She is an acute observer. She’s sympathetic to her characters' need to establish themselves as economically successful and socially serious. But, by naming the totems they set so much store by—the expensive new windows, the right school for their children, the smart vacation venues—she also suggests their tunnel vision. We see there’s something a little overwrought in the denizens of such places as Lowland Way. The issues the author raises will resonate with readers who live in nice but pricey neighborhoods that they want to keep that way, but the page-turning attention generated by Darren’s arrival fades in its final quarter of the novel because the early focus is on the two Morgan families shifts to Ant and Em and Sissy. Though the picture of their devastated lives is effective, the fading attention to Ralph and Naomi, Tess and Finn are a little bewildering. Nonetheless, this is a compelling summer read that inevitably raises issues about homeowners’ expectations.
