The Resident by David Jackson

Thomas Brogan is a serial killer. He’s killed his parents. He’s killed a tonne of other people. Not only does he kill them, but he tortures and mutilates them, he makes them suffer. With the police arriving at the home of his current victims, Thomas flees, assaulting a police officer and bounding over fences to escape into the night. Covered in blood, he wanders the streets, the police closing in. He happens upon an abandoned house on the corner of a terrace. He breaks in, discovers it has an attic, and that he can get into the attics of three of the adjoining properties. He starts to spy on the residents and toy with their lives.

I read a lot of crime fiction, and many of the books that I read have complex and labyrinthine plots. There's nothing wrong with that and when carried off with aplomb they can be astounding reads. But occasionally, you come across a book with a really simple, yet brilliant, storyline. This is one such book. A serial killer hiding in the loft, spying, and toying with the residents.

The characterisation in The resident is pitch-perfect. The author brings to life all the characters, and like Thomas Harris with Hannibal Lector, he even has you sympathising with Brogan, his serial murderer. But whereas Harris performed that trick by imbuing Lector with some memorable traits - his intelligence, his knowledge of fine art and wine - Jackson does this by humanising Brogan. 

Yes, he humanises a monster who tortures and murders his victims. He does this by giving us just enough backstory, and giving him just enough empathy for the people that he comes across (such as Elsie, an elderly woman with Alzheimer’s who confuses him for her son) that we see past what he has done, and what he is doing, to the damaged psyche below. 

The Resident is a deliciously creepy read. This is a book that had me turning the pages. Cliché though it might be, it was unputdownable. It’s such a simple concept, that somebody might be spying on you from your own attic. Most people rarely go up there, for why would you? It’s that dark space with cobwebs and spiders where you store old junk. In fact, even I checked the eaves after reading this (and I have an attic conversion, so, on the whole, there’s nowhere for a serial killer to hide).

I’m a writer myself working on my own novel and this book got in the way of my writing (damn you David Jackson!). 

I really can’t recommend this enough, so far it’s my book of 2020. 

So get yourself a copy. Just be sure to check the attic after reading.

5 out of 5 stars