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

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What do we know about the character of Terry? How well does Linda really know him? Did you find him suspicious? Linda lives a quiet (if unfulfilling) life with her husband, Terry, in a peaceful town—until young women start to go missing. Rumors spread of a serial killer in their midst, and both Linda and her mother, who lives nearby, are reminded of the dark past they left behind in Wales many years ago. . . . I am looking forward to reading more books by Joanna Cannon and am so glad I took a chance on this one. Get me out of here! I’ve already said, I was so claustrophobic inside Linda’s head! It sort of felt like I was in an MRI machine. Let me out! 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.’

From the bestselling author of The Trouble with Goats and Sheep and Three Things About Elsie, a delightfully sinister novel about a married woman living a nice, quiet suburban life—but things aren’t always what they seem… Cannon’s version of suburbia is wonderfully creepy and claustrophobic – a curtain-twitching, darkly funny tale with a gloriously sinister twist. Linda is still tugging at my heartstrings a little, days after finishing. The Coffin Club Linda works in a charity shop, and she has just left a catalogue of pricey furniture where her co-worker Tamsin can’t miss it. She tells Tamsin they’re redecorating their house (a lie), and also that she’s looking for something nice to wear to meet her best friend (a lie). You get the idea. Adapted from a short story and inspired by the voice of audiobook reader Lissa Berry, A Tidy Ending is a character driven cozy mystery with an edge that will have you questioning everything. Newspapers will always sniff around, asking their questions, wanting answers and photographs and rummaging in everyone else’s business. It’s started, even now. All those people who walked at the edges of my life over the years have begun to reappear. All those passersby and all those silent voices have suddenly found something they want to say. Everyone is trying very hard to work out who they think I am, which is odd because they were never very interested in who I was before any of this happened. I suppose they want to make sense of it all, and they’ll struggle because no one has all the pieces of the story, except for me. It won’t stop them, though. Poor Linda, they’ll say. She always was soft in the head or Poor Linda, I often thought she was a little bit strange, because we like to cast the heroes and the villains quite early on in a story, and then everyone knows where they are.

🍪 Privacy & Transparency

She noticed something at the press conference, when they put up a picture of the victim, but Terry had already said the police hadn’t got a clue and switched the channel. A Tidy Ending is the first book that I have read by Joanna Cannon and I really enjoyed it. I listened to the audiobook read by Lissa Berry and her narration is superb. I highly recommend listening to this book. It also includes an interview with the author at the end, moderated by Berry. I can see she's socially maladjusted, mentally and psychologically devastated by the loss of her father, who she talks about constantly (it's creepily Freudian how much she obsesses over him), despite how many years have passed since his death.

A compellingly crafted, darkly funny and compulsive read, full of twists’ – Rachel Joyce, The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry About the Author, Joanna Cannon

Table of Contents

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? Cannon’s third novel centers on a Welshwoman with a secret traumatic past in a town with a possible serial killer. Cannon’s shrewd characterisation, sparky observations and subtly menacing plot makes this a darkly funny and delightfully sinister read.’ – Mail on Sunday When Linda's mum asked where she wanted to move to, she manipulated her mum. She says that lots of people moved from her area after her dad died and hints that she overheard conversations about where the other girls were moving to. I think she heard whets Karen was going and got her mum to move to the same area. I do wonder if she killed Karen too. She didn’t reply. Sometimes, they don’t. Sometimes, it’s as though you haven’t spoken at all, as if your world and their world are running quite happily side by side, but there isn’t any way of moving between one and the other.

MY THOUGHTS: Very clever, Joanna Cannon. I had absolutely no idea where you were taking me, not the slightest suspicion. My jaw hit the floor at the end and I laughed, probably a tad hysterically. It was just so beautifully unexpected. I absolutely loved it.. A serial killer, a traumatised woman, the quirkiest of characters, such perfect observational writing - she's a superstar." - Sarah PinboroughIn Will Dean’s First Born, we meet Molly, an identical twin whose sister, Katie, has just been murdered in New York. Molly has always been the less adventurous of the two, cautious and frightened of life, but she forces herself to leave London to try to find out what really happened to her twin. As the New York police investigation seems to stall, Molly turns detective, leaving her comfort zone to interrogate Katie’s teachers, friends and boyfriends in her quest for the truth. An identical twin mystery is always entertaining and Dean, author of the excellent Tuva Moodyson series of Sweden-set thrillers and the standalone The Last Thing to Burn, handles his plot with skill. Molly, properly alone for the first time in her life, is a complex, intriguing protagonist – and Dean has plenty of surprises up his sleeve for the unwary reader. From the moment that Linda slides into Rebecca’s life, Linda starts to feel more confident and ready to have the life she feels she truly deserves. In doing so, she sets off a chain of events that no one could ever have foreseen, and one thing is certain – everyone in Linda’s life will never be the same again.