Book review: The People Next Door by Christopher Ransom

Mick Nash is an ordinary small town American guy but something seriously scary is happening to him ... and it involves the people next door.

Christopher Ransom, author of runaway bestsellers The Birthing House and The Haunting of James Hastings, has a new supernatural thriller on the market and it packs an electrifying punch.

The People Next Door is the perfect read for fans of Dean Koontz and Stephen King with its pulsating paranormal storyline and a twist in the tail that’s guaranteed to send out shockwaves.

Mick and Amy Nash and their two teenage children, Kyle and Briela, lead fairly routine lives in Boulder, Colorado.

Amy worries about her weight, Mick is suffering from what he calls ‘a total life-hangover,’ Kyle has just discovered alcohol and girls, and Briela is having a tough time at school.

When a family day sailing on a nearby lake ends in a near-death drowning experience, Mick finds himself on the cusp of a terrifying mystery with the power to change his fortunes forever, or destroy everything he holds dear.

Resuscitated underwater by unknown forces and recuperating at home, Mick suffers horrific visions from the other side while young daughter Briela is gripped by tantrums and recurring nightmares that foretell an approaching menace.

A warning from a dead friend is only the first in a series of disturbing new insights and visitations, opening frightening doors to new opportunities and leaving Mick increasingly paranoid.

Then into the house next door move the Renders. They are beautiful, confident and charming, and the Nashes are promptly seduced by their charisma, their money and their sex appeal.

Wife Cassandra offers uncanny solutions to Amy’s suburban doldrums, and husband Vince becomes instrumental in rescuing Mick’s diner business from financial ruin.

Too late Mick learns they are not as perfect as they seem and that something is deeply, darkly wrong with them. Who are these people, where did they come from and what are they hiding in the basement?

As death and darkness descend on the neighbourhood, only Mick can save his family and expose the horrifying truth about the people next door.

If pure terror is your bag, Ransom’s novel could be a perfect partner as the nights draw in...

(Sphere, paperback, £7.

The Halifax Reader - Halifax Public Libraries: Husband Material

He shows just how far a person will go to protect his family. Mitch Rafferty gets a phone call stating that his wife has been kidnapped and the ransom is $2 million. The only problem is that he does not have that kind of money. What will he do and how much he will sacrifice to save Holly’s life? Koontz has written a page-turner with this puzzle. is a fictional autobiography of Poppy Minkel-Minton Catchings Merrick. Maybe because I know so little about the Jewish culture I find this subject matter interesting. And like all comedies you have to take what is said with a grain of (kosher) salt. To quote Booklist “...from the sinking of the Titanic to the 1929 stock market crash to the Nazi terrors.....Poppy has always found herself in the thick of things.”So while this is not a book about a husband it is a funny book about the hunt. writes a novel where danger seems to be ready to strike at any moment . The 40 ‘ish year old narrator is never named but her newly wed husband, Dennis provides most of the action in this black comedy. Dennis is a major klutz “this was the kind of man my husband was: strange, loving, lethal.” Dennis is so accident prone he almost detaches his penis after sitting on a glass table which shatters. It would be one thing if he only harmed himself but his every movement leaves wreckage in his wake. He crushes his wife’s toe with a hot skillet, wrenches her neck, drops her on the floor, breaks her arm by hugging her, etc. She finally has had enough and hires a hit man. So what “accidents” happen next......and to whom. Read the novel to find out.

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