Book Review: The Downstairs Neighbor

Three families find their lives unravelling in the wake of a missing teenage girl in Helen Cooper's heart-pounding debut The Downstairs Neighbor. When 17-year-old Freya fails to return to her apartment, her parents Paul and Steph are sure the disappearance has something to do with their own individual pasts, which they have kept a secret unbeknownst to the other, putting it all behind to lead a life of normalcy. But the key to unlocking the mystery arrives from an unexpected quarter, when their downstairs neighbour, Emma, and the couple who occupy the basement flat get swept up in the case, throwing everything revealed up to that point entirely out the window, and the shifting points of view lets loose a maze of unexpected detours and thrilling surprises. Helen Cooper expertly juggles multiple storylines, and doles out the plot twists, some of them small, some sizeable, and one so shocking that it turns the entire story inside out. Top-notch and deliciously twisted storytelling!