Review: The Magpies by Mark Edwards

The Magpies by Mark Edwards is one of those books that I had on my Kindle for months, without really knowing why, but I blame marijuana as the culprit.  It is a psychological thriller featuring a newly married couple and their neighbors from hell.

When Jamie and Kirsty move into their first home together they are full of optimism. The future, in which they plan to get married and start a family, is bright. The other residents of their building seem friendly too: the horror writer and the middle-aged herbalist who live upstairs, and the Newtons, a married couple who welcome them to the building with open arms.

At first, the two couples get on well. But then strange things start to happen. Dead rats are left on their doorstep. They hear disturbing noises, and much worse, in the night. After Jamie's best friend is injured in a horrific accident, Jamie and Kirsty find themselves targeted by a campaign of terror.

As Jamie and Kirsty are driven to the edge of despair, Jamie vows to fight back – but he has no idea what he is really up against…

THE MAGPIES is a terrifying psychological thriller in which the monsters are not vampires or demons but the people we live next door to. It is a nightmare that could happen to anyone.                                                                                                    @Goodreads

Unfortunately, psychological thrillers like this are a dime a dozen, and The Magpies does little to stand apart from other works in the genre. Jamie and Kirsty just moved into the apartment of their dreams, but everything is not as they imagined it would be; they seem to be living under the couple from hell.  Shortly after moving in, pranks start happening:  dead rats on their door step, the fire department being called when there was no fire, pizza being delivered to their house when they did not order it, et cetera.

Then, they start receiving notes from their neighbors, telling them that they have sex too loudly, and even one time enclosing a recording of them having sex that they had apparently taped.  Creepy, yes, but then the creepiness factor kind of sputters out, and nothing of consequence happens for entirely too long.

At the end, Kirsty wants to sell the apartment, but her husband has developed a Jack Torrence-like obsession with staying, regardless of personal cost, and even tries to hire a hit man to teach the neighbors a lesson.  He has a lackluster little show-off against the neighbors, burns the place down, and that's that.  The end.

Overall, not the worst I've read, but nothing that will stand out in my mind in a couple weeks time.  Decent, but not great.  And the sex scenes were just awkward.