Hey!

I just finished reading The Perfect Tenant by AJ Carter.

And it's about a neighborhood street, and its inhabitants, and the secrets they carry.

In this particular story, a single mother rents her second home to a woman, and soon, a neighbor is murdered. Did the new tenant do it, or did she move in at the wrong time?

These are the ones I enjoyed the most.

Quiet Street Thrillers

On a Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass

In an exclusive Oregon coastal community, three women share the same quiet street, but none of them knows the full story of what's behind the others' doors.

Cora suspects her husband is cheating. Paige is quietly investigating her son's death. And their neighbor, Georgia, is carrying a secret that touches them both.
In On a Quiet Street by Seraphina Nova Glass, we follow all three as their separate stories slowly converge, until the street can't hold its secrets anymore.

The Water Lies by Amy Meyerson

Tessa lives with her family in a tight-knit neighbourhood along the canals of Venice Beach, Los Angeles. When her toddler fixates on a stranger at a local coffee shop, she thinks nothing of it. Until that same woman's body is pulled from the canal outside their home the next morning.

In The Water Lies by Amy Meyerson, we follow Tessa and Barb — the dead woman's mother — as they dig into what their quiet residential canal was hiding.

All Her Fault by Andrea Mara

Marissa drops her five-year-old son, Milo, off for a playdate with a child from his school. When she returns to pick him up, there was no playdate. The address was false, the child doesn't exist, and Milo is gone.

In All Her Fault by Andrea Mara, we follow Marissa as she tries to find who in her quiet Dublin suburb set the trap, and what they wanted with her son.

And the newest addition to the list:

The Perfect Tenant by AJ Carter

Alice is a single mother living on a quiet residential street in England. When she rents her spare house to Ellie, the arrangement seems perfect: Ellie is responsible, friendly, and even offers to babysit Alice's six-year-old son, Cody. Then Cody comes home with a bruise. A neighbor is murdered. A string of vandalism starts pointing toward the woman Alice let through her door. And when reports surface that England's most notorious unidentified kidnapper is heading toward their town, Alice becomes convinced Ellie is behind all of it. Her boyfriend, Max, tells her she is being paranoid. She cannot let it go.

The Perfect Tenant by AJ Carter is a domestic thriller set in a residential neighborhood in England.

Carter's writing is functional and easy to follow. Plot and dialogue move naturally, and descriptions stay lean, which kept me in the story.

We follow two first-person narrators, Alice and Max, in a single timeline, with a handful of chapters from the perspective of other neighbors on the street. The story picks up rather quickly, after a couple of short introductory chapters.

Alice is a proactive protagonist. Her determination to protect Cody drives the plot forward throughout. Max's chapters are from the perspective of the protective boyfriend, and his role is to ground Alice and help her discover who is behind the recent criminal activities in their neighborhood.

The story was interesting throughout, although I did have some issues with how certain characters were handled once their reveals came.

There is some romance between Alice and Max, though it stays in the background. There is no swearing. And there is violence, but nothing graphic.

So, what about the ending? (No spoilers, obviously)

The ending did not work for me. I was all in until the last few pages of the book, though, but I found it more frustrating than satisfying. There was also no denouement, which meant the story ended abruptly.

The Perfect Tenant by AJ Carter is a solid domestic thriller. The dual narrators keep the tension up, and the setup moves fast. If you like contained popcorn thrillers with lots of twists, you'll enjoy this one.

Latest Updates

• Lucky lands on Apple TV+ on July 15. Marissa Stapley's Reese's Book Club pick follows a con artist who can't claim a winning lottery ticket without blowing her criminal cover. Anya Taylor-Joy, Annette Bening, and Timothy Olyphant star.

That’s all for this week. See you next time.

— D.E. Dunne

P.S. Let me know how I did today by replying to this email.

P.P.S. I would love to hear your recommendations for thrillers you loved. Reply to this email, and I’ll add them to my TBR list. Thanks!

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