"Strangers" by C.L. Taylor

An audio book set in Bristol.

Alice Fletcher, clothes shop mananger, is 46. Lynn's her friend. She lives with her daughter Emily. She's dating. She's helped by Simon when she's mugged by a date. Simon dates her. She gets anonymous warnings about him. He tells her he was about to marry then called it off.

Gareth failed to get into the police. He's been a shopping centre security officer for 25 years. He has a demented mother and a father who disappeared years before. A spiritualist/psychic, William McAsee, has been given a donation by his mother. She's been receiving cards - "To my darling Joan ... John". From McAsee? Gareth's being blackmail for £500 by a subordinate, Liam Dumford, because he'd taken an unannounced break.

Ursula, tall and fat, ex-teacher, shop-lifts to order, and delivers parcels. She has to move out of a house-share with Charlotte. She moves in with eccentric Edward. She wonders what is in his cellar. She used to be in an affair with Nathan but we died in a street fight. She thinks a woman that she delivers parcels to is being abused by her husband, Wilson. He complains, and gets her sacked. But she's right.

3 men have gone missing. One of them is Liam. Gareth is questioned.

Alice goes to the cinema with Simon. She sees Ursula in the audience. Simon suddenly says they have to leave. He breaks off the relationship. She's puzzled. She discovers that he's an ex DJ who did pranks. He's being stalked and threatened.

Gareth's mother disappears. He thinks that Georgia, the 13 y.o. daughter of his single-parent neighbour Kath, knows something.

Ursula hears scatching from the cellar. Maybe the missing men are there. She breaks in to discover ferrets - Ed's secret pets. Ed has many pictures of Simon on his wall. Ed is the stalker?

As Alice is closing her shop, Georgia is found hiding. She'd made a friend of Gareth's mother because her own mother was too busy. She sent her the postcards to make her happy. Her classmates had bullied her into shop-lifting. Ed holds Alice, Ursula, Lynn and Simon at knife-point. Gareth gets in a fight with Ed. Ed dies, the others are saved. Gareth's mother is found dead, sleeping rough.

Emotions are objectified -

• "indignation bubbles in Alison's chest"
• "She forces a smile onto her face"
• "Irritation is starting to show on his face"

etc

Other reviews

• meredithrankin (The other issue was the number of flashbacks. A chapter would open from one character's point of view in present tense. Then it would immediately switch to past tense and recount what had happened recently. ... the switch from present to past to present again confused the order of events and felt unnecessary. Why not simply tell the story as the events unfold?)