The Girl Before meets The Couple Next Door in a Hitchcockian thriller about a couple who moves into their dream neighborhood only to discover nothing is as it seems... The perfect couple. The perfect house. The perfect crime. Londoners Jack and Syd found their dream home: lots of space, a great location, and a friendly owner who wanted a young couple to have it. Everything is exactly what they hoped for when they move in--except Jack makes a disturbing discovery in the attic, and Syd begins to wonder about the girl next door. And they each keep the other in the dark. A mistake. Because someone has just been killed outside their back door, and now the police are watching them. This is their chance to prove they're innocent--or to get away with murder. Whose story do you believe? Praise for The New Neighbors   “An intricate, powerful, and deeply unsettling thriller about the profound ways in which cruelty can change its survivors, and the creeping fear that nothing—not your home, not love, not even your own mind—is as rock-solid and impregnable as we all want to believe.”—Tana French, New York Times bestselling author of The Trespasser   “This terrifying thriller sent shivers through me!”—Jane Corry, author of My Husband's Wife   “A raw, tightly wound thrill ride, a nightmare scenario about a home purchase that goes horribly wrong. And then some. This is a fast-paced, intense, and creepy novel that you won't be able to put down until you reach the end.”—David Bell, bestselling author of Bring Her Home “A masterpiece of duplicity, a psychological thriller of the highest order, in which the characters not only lie to each other and to everyone around them, they lie to themselves. With two highly unreliable narrators digging themselves deeper in every chapter, fans of he said/she said suspense will love this tense and gripping story. Highly recommended!”—Karen Dionne, author The Marsh King's Daughter “This twisty tale steadily builds suspense.”— Good Housekeeping “Lelic's latest is riveting enough to keep readers turning the pages as he leaves them guessing. Skillfully crafted, the intricate plot is filled with raw, honest emotion...this spellbinding thrill of a read will keep readers on the edge of their seats.”— RT Book Reviews “The New Neighbors is about as difficult a book to put down as you can find...Simon Lelic’s writing is simply ingenious, and you will have to decide who’s the victim in this story.”—BookReporter.com “A bundle of creepy chills...Read it.”— The Observer “Deeply creepy...This clever, twisting plot, told in convincing voices, will haunt you in the very best way.”— Sunday Mirror Simon Lelic is a former journalist and the author of the award-winning A Thousand Cuts as well as the critically acclaimed The Facility and The Child Who . The New Neighbors is his first psychological thriller, inspired by a love of Alfred Hitchcock and Stephen King. Simon lives with his wife and three children. Chapter one Jack The police were outside again last night. I watched them in the alleyway from the spare-bedroom window. They couldn't have seen me. I'm fairly sure they couldn't have seen me. And so what if they had? It's not like I was doing anything wrong. It's perfectly natural, isn't it? Like the way motorists slow down to get a view of an accident. Probably the police would have assumed it odd if I hadn't been watching. I mean, I couldn't tell from where I was standing, but I bet the rest of our neighbors were all watching, too. All with their lights off. All cloaked discreetly by their curtains. What I didn't like was the impression I had that everyone out there was also looking discreetly at me. That the police being out there, at that time of night, was all just a show. A reminder. God, this is hard. Harder than I thought it would be. It's knowing where to begin as much as anything. I'm not Syd. I know what she thinks, what conclusions she's drawn already, but I don't process things the way she does. If she had gone first, I don't know where we would have ended up, and I'm pretty sure I wouldn't have had a clue about where to go next. I guess for me the only logical place to start is the day we first saw the house. This was back in April. It's September now. The fourteenth. At 3:17 in the morning, to be precise. Syd's in bed, but I couldn't sleep even if I wanted to. I doubt she's sleeping either, to be honest. I don't think she's slept properly in weeks. Me, I drop off easily enough. Every night I don't think I'm going to, but it's exhaustion, I suppose, the weight of worry. Tonight, though, our decision made, I just wanted to get on with it. There's a lot to get through and not a lot of time. The open house day, then. I suppose it has to be, though thereÕs very little about the day itself that was unusual. I recall how busy it was, how many people, when the time came, narrow-shouldered their way through the front door. Because there wa