A Tidy Ending: The latest dark comedy from the Sunday Times bestselling author

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Linda orchestrated events and convinced Terry to buy the house by making him think it was his idea. I think she planned her revenge for a very long time. But the loss of her father has never left Linda; she thinks about him constantly and how his death affected her small family. He was the only one she was close to. we might not see the world how it really is. We might be mistaken about things and we need someone to help us who can see it all more clearly.’ Linda watches everything and says very little - she has few friends, and as the book goes further in, she’s either very sheltered, or on a spectrum - I plumped for the latter.

While Terry becomes increasingly absent from the house and their marriage, Linda becomes more and more obsessed with Rebecca. Using some incredibly clever deduction, she manufactures ‘bumping’ into Rebecca and her boyfriend Jolyon. Meeting them only fuels Linda’s desire to be more like Rebecca, copying her hair and clothes, and believing that she has found a new friend. Yet Rebecca and Jolyon see her as an unwitting victim for their money making ‘scheme’. In a heartbreaking scene for the reader, Rebecca believes she has found the perfect candidate to be her new cleaner – which Linda sees as an extension of their friendship – and a way to really get close to Rebecca. Super review Clare. I have it today on audio, as I have done with all of Joanna’s other books. Now can’t wait to listen to it! I’m sure it won’t disappoint! Her husband is awful, they have no life, no friends, no conversation. There was a scene in the pub where she asks him a question and he seems to wonder if she’s even talking to him. ‘Who me?’A Maid twin. This story had a lot in common with The Maid. Both main characters were clean freaks who were out of it, and both stories involved crimes. And even stranger, both had mothers who had passed down trite sayings. If you liked The Maid (which I didn’t, as I said earlier), I think you’ll love this one. I liked this one a bit more than The Maid. Sublimely structured and darkly witty...the multilayered plot offers genuine surprises up to the final revelation. Cannon has raised her game with this one." - Publishers Weekly (starred review) Mother says I take far too much notice of the world, that I hold on to things when everyone else has let them go, but it’s just the way God made me and you never know when that kind of information will come in useful. The story gets even more interesting when a body of a young woman is found nearby and it doesn’t end there. Locals have the jitters and the whole awful affair feels too close for comfort. Meanwhile, Terry is going to work and coming home, and expecting his dinner on the table, and for Linda to be there for him. As he increasingly spends more time at work, the news is filled with stories of young girls going missing, and as the reader, our imagination starts to wonder exactly where Terry has been and what he has been doing when he isn’t at work and hasn’t arrived home..

I'd thoroughly recommend A Tidy Ending to any reader who enjoys a sprinkling of dark humour in their crime-mystery-thriller reads, and equally to those who love "the mouse that roared" type plots. The chapters are mostly in the past with the murders and Linda’s preoccupation, but there also “now” chapters where Linda is in the present, foreshadowing what may have happened in the past. Discuss the presentation of social media in the book. How does it make the characters feel, and how does it impact the events of the story? How does this compare to your own experiences with social media? A genuinely funny, and moving, novel about a serial killer… a curtain-twitching, darkly funny tale with a gloriously sinister twist’ – The Guardian As she opens more of Rebecca Finch’s mail, she seems to become fixated on her to the point of stalking. The story gets more complicated and far-fetched. By the end, I didn’t care what happened to anyone, I just wanted to know what the point was.A Tidy Ending is thoroughly absorbing… Cannon carefully unspools this character-driven mystery using the superb storytelling we’ve come to expect from her.” — Olivia Kiernan, author of Too Close to Breathe When Linda was young, her father did something very bad which forced Linda and her mother to leave town and start a new life. A compellingly crafted, darkly funny and compulsive read, full of twists... a joy and a triumph." - Rachel Joyce Compellingly creepy, with precisely observed characterisation . . . combines pathos with lovely flashes of humour and a wholly unexpected ending" — The Guardian (UK)