The Bad Neighbor

by David Tallerman

When part-time teacher Ollie Clay panic-buys a rundown house in the outskirts of Leeds, he soon recognizes his mistake. His new neighbor, Chas Walker, is an antisocial thug, and Ollie's suspicions raise links to a local hate group. With Ollie's life unravelling rapidly, he feels his choices dwindling: his situation is intolerable and only standing up to Chas can change it. But Ollie has his own history of violence, and increasingly, his own secrets to hide; and Chas may be more than the mindless yob he appears to be. As their conflict spills over into the wider world, Ollie will come to learn that there are worse problems in life than one bad neighbor.

Genres: Horror, Thriller, Crime, Fiction

288 pages, Paperback

First published September 6, 2018

About the author

David Tallerman is the author of the comic fantasy novel The Black River Chronicles: Level One and its first sequel The Black River Chronicles: The Ursvaal Exchange, the Tales of Easie Damasco series (Giant Thief, Crown Thief and Prince Thief), and the Tor.com novella Patchwerk. His comics work includes the absurdist steampunk graphic novel Endangered Weapon B and the Lovecraftian horror miniseries C21st Gods.

David's short science fiction, fantasy and horror has appeared in over eighty markets, including Clarkesworld, Lightspeed, Nightmare and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. A number of his dark fantasy tales have been collected as The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories.

He can be found online at davidtallerman.co.uk.

Reviews

[Berit☀️✨ · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Bad Neighbor is a compelling, dark, and gritty book...

What happens when you move into your dream house and find out you are living next to the neighbor from hell? Ollie has recently come into some money and uses it to finally purchase a house of his own... The problem is he is now living next to A skinhead... with a bit of a delinquent past of his own how will Ollie navigate the situation? This book got off to a bit of a slow start, but at about the half point it really picked up... filled with all the twists and turns and dark secrets you would expect from a book in this genre...

This was a dark book and that extended to the mood of the main character Ollie... he was definitely the glass is always half empty kind of guy... pictured him walking around with a dark cloud over his head at all times🌧 I really found myself wanting to bring some sunshine into his life...

The ending of this book was surprising and satisfying! I’d recommend this book too people who enjoy a darker grittier crime thriller...

*** many thanks to the publisher for my copy of this book ***

[Frank Errington · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review Copy

There's a new publisher I think we're going to hear a lot about in the coming months. They call themselves Flame Tree Press and they plan to publish both established authors and new voices in horror and the supernatural, crime and mystery thrillers, as well as science fiction and fantasy.

Their first set of novels include Creature by Hunter Shea, The Mouth of the Dark by Tim Waggoner, The Siren and the Specter by Jonathan Janz, The Sky Woman by J.D. Moyer, Thirteen Days by Sunset Beach by Ramsey Cambell and the book I'll be reviewing today, The Bad Neighbor by David Tallerman.

What to do with an inheritance of 54,300 pounds. Well, if you're young and desperate to own your own home and want to pay cash you can buy a bit of a fixer-upper in a bad neighborhood, but then you might wind up with a bad neighbor the way Oliver Clay did.

When one bad decision leads to your life falling apart, a person is likely to make even worse decisions in a desperate attempt to pull it back together.

Even though David's story is set in his native England, Americans can certainly relate to what's going on here, as his neighbor Chas and his mates are members of the hate group Britains For The British.

While not exactly horror, The Bad Neighbor is more of a Crime Thriller, it did have many horrific elements. It made me angry and caused me to embrace the protagonist's effort to do something, even if it that something might be considered wrong by some.

This is my first read of David Tallerman, and I must admit I really enjoyed the experience. It was so easy to become immersed in the brutal world in which Ollie finds himself residing.

Strongly recommended.

Available in various formats from Flame Tree Press.

From the author's bio - David Tallerman is the author of the YA fantasy series. His comics work includes the absurdist steampunk graphic novel Endangered Weapon B: Mechanimal Science (with Bob Molesworth) and the ongoing miniseries C21st Gods (with Anthony Summey).

David's short fiction has appeared in around eighty markets, including Clarkesworld, Nightmare, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and Beneath Ceaseless Skies. A number of his best dark fantasy and horror stories were gathered together in his debut collection The Sign in the Moonlight and Other Stories.

[Audra (ouija.reads) · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is the story of a guy who is really just a grade-A screwup and can't make one good decision to save his life.

Though it offers an interesting enough setup for a thriller—man moves into house, man finds out the guy next door is a real a-hole, man can't move out, turns out the guy next door is probably into some really bad stuff, man has to defend his turf—this one really wasn't for me.

Stylistically, the book just felt reaalllly slooow. It is constantly showing what's going on, and then also telling and explaining and talking about what happened too. We get it—readers can put things together. We don't need every little thing explained and then over-explained.

As it is told from said screwup's perspective, meticulously documenting every little thing he did and every thought that ran through his brain, the reader gets a good idea of what his deal is. And yet, I was so frustrated with him constantly asking him in my head to explain his actions, as they tend to not make logical sense, only forwarding the action of the story, rather than being what any reasonable person would do. This only amps up toward the end.

I don't have anything against unlikable characters. I think they can be very useful. But Ollie is more than unlikable, he is nonsensical, and I really draw the line there.

Between characters who seemed two-dimensional to transparent, the lack of motivation for the actions taken, and a plot that truly plods along, I can't really recommend this one as a book to pick up.

My thanks to Flame Tree Press for sending me an advance copy of this one to read and review.

[Laura Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ollie comes into a bit of money and, on impulse, he buys a rundown house in a seedy neighborhood. In no time he has run ins with the neighbor. The music coming from next door plays into the wee hours. So loud he can’t sleep. And the parties spill over into the back yard, getting on his last nerve. When he finally decides to do something about it, the description of a bad neighbor gives this story a whole new twist.

Ollie went from annoyed to out of control in a heart beat. I wanted to grab him by the collar and shake the crap out of him. He was impulsive, reckless. Ever watched a movie or read a book where the character does something that makes you wince? You don’t want to see it or read it, but you can’t stop? Well, this guy is all kinds of are you nuts and shy in the smarts department.

After a slow start and accepting the fact I wasn’t going to warm up to the main character, things picked up and I settled in to finish the book. Some twists and suspenseful scenes made it worth pushing through to the end.

I received a complimentary copy. My review is voluntarily given.

[exorcismemily]

I'm setting The Bad Neighbor aside around 60 pages. Not much has happened, and the main character just makes unnecessary mistakes, and then complains. I don't think I can go on for 200+ more pages of that. It's very slow, and I couldn't maintain interest in the storyline.

[Yolanda Sfetsos · Rating 2 out of 5]

My Flame Tree Press ARC reading continues with this crime/thriller. I didn't know what to expect and found the cover disturbing enough, so I got stuck into it.

Ollie Clay is a part-time teacher. When he comes into some unexpected money, he decides to buy a house because he's sick of paying rent. The problem is that most of the houses in his price range aren't that great and not in good locations.

Throwing caution to the wind, he decides to buy one he manages to score for a good deal. The house is in pretty shabby condition, but what's worse is the awful neighbour and the people who hang around his house.

It doesn't take long for Ollie's life to become a living hell...

Okay. This book was... Let's just say that I couldn't get into it. I'm usually totally into thrillers, but this one just didn't hook me in. The characters weren't interesting, the situation frustrating, and the pacing is slow.

I just didn't get into it.

Ollie is such an annoying character. And I have to be honest, I didn't even understand the premise. If the guy can't afford a house worth living in, why settle for such a dive? Yeah, I didn't really like him much.

As for how the story develops, I couldn't warm to anything that was going on, and even the 'twist' didn't work for me. And the ending didn't make it worthwhile, either.

The Bad Neighbour is a crime thriller about one man's ordeal after he moves next door to a bad seed that brings out the worst out of him. It's a dark study into the worst parts of society that is quite disturbing.

I really wanted to like this book, and tried really hard to get into it, but the story didn't work for me.

[Tracy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed the premise of this thriller: man moved into a new house too quickly, and his mistake is revealed posthaste. The neighbors aren't exactly welcoming, but the story line just needed something more. The pace was a little slow and the characters needed more development. Perhaps I would've enjoyed it a little more had I been able to connect more strongly with either the story or the characters.

[Figgy]

Flame Tree Press are doing a launch promotion and sent me a parcel which included this book, plus:

Creature
The Siren and The Specter
Thirteen Days By Sunset Beach
The Sky Woman
The Mouth of the Dark

If you're interested in finding out more, you can sign up for updates here:
https://www.flametreepress.com/?utm_c...

Also, as someone who adores proof copies and has a dedicated shelf for them, I love the thought that went into the design of these, with all the important info on the opening pages, and spines that look particularly awesome and eye-catching when shelved together (they look like an actual collection, you guys!).

[Sarah Budd · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was really fortunate to have this book sent to me in exchange for a review from Flame Tree Press, but my other half liked the look of it so much he nabbed it for himself.

Here's his review!
The back cover blurb gave me a good idea of what to expect but I was still shocked by how gripped by the story I became.

When part-time teacher Ollie Clay panic-buys a rundown house in the outskirts of Leeds, he soon recognizes his mistake. His new neighbor, Chas Walker, is an antisocial thug, and Ollie's suspicions raise links to a local hate group. With Ollie's life unravelling rapidly, he feels his choices dwindling: his situation is intolerable and only standing up to Chas can change it. But Ollie has his own history of violence, and increasingly, his own secrets to hide; and Chas may be more than the mindless yob he appears to be. As their conflict spills over into the wider world, Ollie will come to learn that there are worse problems in life than one bad neighbor.

What strikes me as so capturing is how much I could relate to the story's protagonist, Ollie. A lot of us have been there. Investing or wanting to invest a lot of time and emotion into your first house/flat purchase only to have your heart broken on discovering the property isn't all you thought it was when you learn your neighbour is as antisocial as they come.

Okay, that hasn't quite happened to me but the book makes it very easy to imagine yourself in Ollie's shoes. All your money invested in what a third party would only describe as shithole, which only dawns on you after the purchase when you have the displeasure of meeting the tyrant next door. All scarily relatable.

Of course things don't stop there. Without spoiling the twists and turns of the story, the neighbour is worse than merely an antisocial annoyance; his neo-nazi extremist views extend to actions also. Personally I found it really upsetting to reluctantly admit these types of people probably still exist in today's society. I would say if any potential readers are particularly sensitive to racism or have traumatic personal experience on that topic I could imagine this a tough read so proceed with caution in that case. Otherwise it certainly works to make you hate the antagonists and places you squarely behind Ollie and friends. It makes you wonder what you would do when confronted by such evil.

It really is a great read, I'd rate it very high as a real world gritty thriller. The kind of story that has me flying through the pages as my schedule will allow and thinking about the the story when I put it down.

Colin Farr, book reader extraordinaire.

[John Collins · Rating 3 out of 5]

*I was given an ARC in exchange for an honest review *

There were some solid points for this book, mainly the plot. After coming into some money, a man buys a home in a lower income neighborhood only to find out his new neighbor is a skinhead. The idea has a million exciting possibilities.
Unfortunately the main character is rather annoying and kind of whiny . I had a hard time rooting for him and it hindered the book for me.
It’s a shame because despite this, there was several sequences that well paced and suspenseful.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overall, this book was a tale of two books me. For the first half to two-thirds of the book, it was just an ok read. It wasn't great, but it was holding my attention. But in that latter parts of the book, it was a book that I just couldn't put down. I would look a few pages ahead to see if I could get an idea of where it was going before I got there. I'm glad I stuck it out. I saw a few reviews from people that didn't bother to finish it. I think they'd have enjoyed the fast paced ride of the end.

Ollie Clay suffers from just constantly making bad mistakes in life. It seems that everything he does in life is just the opposite of what he should have done. So when I buys a run down home, he is the only one who thinks he should have bought it. Until he moved in.

His neighbor keeps him awake with loud music and partying until all hours of the night. He begins to suspect that his neighbor and his friends are the cause of a missing person and a firebombing. When he is attacked for having a girlfriend of a different race, he can't get Chas, the neighbor, out of his thoughts. He's consumed with trying to find out for certain if Chas is involved with the crimes.

From there, his bad decisions continue. Ollie isn't a likable character, but a character that many of us can relate to as we have all known someone like him who just always does the wrong thing.

Ultimately, Ollie finds out the truth and must deal with his neighbor, his neighbor's friends, and many of the bad decisions that have led him to where he goes in the book.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received an ARC of The Bad Neighbor by David Tallerman from Flame Tree Press for an honest review.

The main character Ollie receives an inheritance from an unknown relative. Despite realizing the money should have gone to his mother he keeps it for himself. Ollie has led a life of poor choices. He impulsively decides to do the “responsible” thing for the first time in his life. With the inheritance he buys a house. The house is rundown and in a seedy part of town. The worst part, Ollie will soon learn, is that he has a bad neighbor. Things don’t take long for the tension with his neighbor to get the best of Ollie. A lifetime of bad choices continue until Ollie’s actions are indistinguishable from that of his neighbor. Things escalate quickly leading to a thrilling conclusion.

The author did a good job of portraying the trapped feeling of a homeowner when things start to go wrong. You can’t just pick up and move. You’re kinda stuck and that can be very stressful.

I enjoyed this book. 4 stars.

[Angela Maher · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to say, the first half of this book didn't grab me, but the second half has the pace, suspense and twists you expect from a decent crime thriller. Primarily urban and dark, there are few light moments to break the bleakness., making this a gritty read.
Things go bad quickly for the lead character from the start, but although there is escalation, the pace seems too slow in the first half. I also didn't connect with Ollie. Paranoid and pessimistic, he seems to have neither the intelligence of a history teacher nor the street smarts of a man with a delinquent adolescence. It made it hard to feel empathy for him, especially with some of the stupid decisions he makes.
The second half is far better. Although some twists are not entirely unexpected, the outcome never feels certain, and it's well paced. If you like this genre, it's worth persisting with the book long enough to get to the good bits.
Many thanks to Flame Tree Press for the ARC. My review is my honest opinion.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a gritty, fast paced thriller about a supply teacher who, rashly, buys a house in a very rundown area of Leeds and only upon purchase realises his enormous mistake. It's such a horrendous mistake that you can't help but feel anguish for the situation the lead character has got himself into.

Overall, I enjoyed it and really felt for Ollie (the lead character) as well as his new girlfriend. Ollie is a complex character who, although frustrating at times, overall engenders sympathy and horror at his situation.

His next door neighbour is a neo-Nazi with similar friends and acquaintances and Ollie ends up in a situation that doesn't bear thinking about.

A good read with a satisfying ending and a content that stays with you long after reading.

Thanks to NetGalley, Flame Tree Publishing and the author for the opportunity to preview in exchange for this honest review.

3.5 stars

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like many a classic horror story, the book starts with a bang – literally a body being thrown against the next-door neighbor’s shared wall – and this sense of impending doom. We even have the classic trope of an inheritance from the long-lost relative. Disregarding advice of friends and family, poor Ollie decides to buy a house, thinking it can’t be worse than his current rental, right? Wrong. Told in a fantastic first-person narrative, we follow Ollie as he travels through insomnia, then paranoia, then probably a full-blown descent into madness. Interwoven in the increasingly erratic decisions are stunning imagery, like: “The next day, the anger remained: complete and perfect as a polished stone.” I can’t wait to share this book and read more of David Tallerman’s short fiction.

This ARC book was provided by my local library & Flame Tree Press, but the opinions are my own.

[Ken Jensen · Rating 4 out of 5]

One of the great arcs sent to me by Flame Tree. The synopsis on the back intrigued me so I read this one next. Author was new to me. This book is odd because to me it felt as through a good chunk of the book I was hoping bad things would happen to the main character. He cared so little about his life so it carried over to how I felt about him. It changes at some point in the book when you realize his main antagonists are worse people and you hope he only gets hurt a little. I think this character was written to be somewhat unlikeable and to make a point about how so many people have no drive to succeed. This book was very enjoyable. Definitely pick it up if you want to root against main character for once.

[Jane Goldberg · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is the most disjointed book I have ever read. The story is great, but the back and forth of narrator’s telling of the story is ridiculous. If you can get over the fact that parts of the book took place BEFORE he brings in plot from BEFORE those (before) events makes no sense.

I like books that are told in a logical manner.

[Don Jimmy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review to come, blog post on August 22nd at donjimmyreviews.wordpress.com

[The Endless Unread · Rating 3 out of 5]

A very deep, gritty and edgy read. This will entertain you from start to finish. It was the characters however i personally struggled with

[Lindsay R. Meislin · Rating 2 out of 5]

Slow read, difficulty keeping my interest.

[Nikki · Rating 4 out of 5]

This will definitely make you thankful for your neighbors, because even if they are bad neighbors, they can't be THAT bad. I was so tense the entire time I was reading this. I find myself more fearful of real-life monsters (humans) than any supernatural or fictional monsters that I could read about. I yelled at the main character so much (which is a little awkward when you are reading a book) that I think I might be losing my voice. Ultimately, I am super thankful with how this book ended. Sometimes I get so invested that a horribly negative ending just stresses me out.