This a strange book. There are three people that live in a house and each person has their own floor. Each person has their own obstacle in life to overcome. The first floor is a policeman Tam that has lost his job due to his values of the past and not keeping up with the present.
On the second floor is Nick. He has autism and his past has caused other problems for him. He wants everything to stay the same so he can keep his schedule on time.
On the last floor there is Karen, a doctor doing a research on autism. She wants to write a paper that will give her fame.
The three have lives that intertwine together. And each person thinks they can change the ways of the other person to the better.
I almost quit reading a couple times because it was so disturbing but like a car wreck I couldn't look away.

The Man on the Middle Floor, Elizabeth S. Moore's second novel to date, is a different take on the crime/mystery fiction we hardcore genre readers usually see left, right and centre, as it is not so much of a whodunit but a whydunit - a new and rapidly expanding market niche. Much like The Colour of Bee Larkham's Murder, the author tries to create interest by building a main character who is autistic, but that's where the similarities end. Sadly, much like that book this story falls flat and is ultimately a disappointing read. I am a huge backer of the push for more diversity in fiction and kudos to Ms Moore for raising awareness, but I have relatives and friends who are on the spectrum and find that this portrayal is not an accurate depiction of the condition.

It is a nicely written piece with a promising premise, but I can't help but feel that if you plan to use characters with a condition, you owe it to your readers and genuine real-life sufferers to be as accurate as possible; what's the point in highlighting the plight of those people if the book is full of misinformation? It likely does more harm than good. From then on it was a lost cause - it really was a dealbreaker when the incorrect details of an already misunderstood condition kept piling up. Best advice for an author looking to broach a tricky topic - research thoroughly and ensure to the best of your ability that information contained in the story is spot-on. Either that or leave it alone completely. There were some astute observation and social commentary throughout which lends the story credence but by then I had pretty much lost interest.

Many thanks to RedDoor Publishing for an ARC.

Good story. Loved the subject matter. I was a little unsure at first, but definitely worth the read! Can't wait to read more from her!

I have just finished this book and am relieved to have done so. I have to be honest and admit if I had not received this title through Netgalley I would not have continued to read and finish it.
This appears to be a novel about three characters all living in the same house on different floors, all flawed. I don't know a great deal about Aspergers but I think Nick has been very unfairly portrayed when he is surrounded by circumstances he cannot deal with. Tam is a policeman who walks out on the job when he is told his position is to turn into a desk job so he drinks himself into a stupor. Karen is supposedly a researcher who is looking into Aspergers - its causes and effects - but obviously doesn't recognise the condition in people or understand how to deal with people who suffer with it. Mixed into this is explicit sex which seems to have been included in the book with the intention of shocking. Sorry, not a book that appeals to me.
Many thanks to Netgalley/Elizabeth S Moore/RedDoor Publishing for a digital copy of this title. All opinions expressed are my own.

An average attempt at delivering gritty psychological thrill that is let down by its stereotyping and its evident lack of imagination. While the focus is on the characters, it fails to elaborate on the murder which is what gives the book its title which leaves a reader wondering if they were misled. I went in expecting Sherlock with three strangers in an apartment complex. I came out with disappointment.

I have conflicting feelings about this book and having read some other reviews, I can see I am not the only one. Nick, Tam and Karen live in flats within the same house and certain events bring them together in an intertwined disturbing story line. I enjoyed the writing style, in particular the way the author managed to give the characters distinctive voices of their own. The premise of the book was a good one, with lots of potential. However, I have to agree with the other reviewers who commented on how stereotypical the characters are. In addition, I found Karen's character very implausible. As a working mum myself, I fully understand the struggle of juggling a career and a home life, but the way Karen is depicted makes her into a caricature taken to extreme.

Still, I read ‘The Man on the Middle Floor’ quickly and which kept me enthralled until the end.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for sending me an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest and impartial review.

I had requested a copy of The Man on the Middle Floor from NetGalley based solely on its cover. And I read it a long time after I got it. So long that I only hoped that it justified my faith in the unknown. But the problem with this book is – no, actually, it isn’t just one thing. There are too many to finish up in just a single sentence or even a paragraph. So this time, I will deviate from my usual form of review-writing and put down in points what I liked and didn’t like about it.

But before that: The Man on the Middle Floor is the story of Nicholas Peters or Nick, an autistic 24-year-old who is living on his own. He needs routine, because of his condition. And any variation agitates him. This leads him to a commit a number of crimes, though they don’t seem wrong to him in his condition. He is merely looking for peace of mind.

Karen Watson is a scientific researcher working in a hospital and doing case studies on autism, to the point of ignoring her children who live with her ex-husband. She is writing a paper and when she sees that Nick is autistic makes him her pet project. Tam is a cop who has just resigned from his post but he wants to do something for society.

These three people live in the same building and when their lives cross, whether the world topples over or rights itself is left to be seen.

What I Didn’t Like:
Oh, there is just too much that I didn’t like. Yes, for a minute in the end, I felt I was being too harsh and maybe things were like this somewhere in the world. But that doesn’t take away from how I felt as I read the story.

* The book starts off in a confusing manner. Plus all I was hoping for is an explanation for how badly The Man on the Middle Floor started off. Nothing registered in my head because there really wasn’t a way to find out who the good guy was and who the bad guy was. This is uniform across the first half of the book, though it is clear in the end. Obviously.
* Ideas and timelines are all over the place. I needed saving more than once or twice or thrice.
* One of the main characters is autistic but that does not mean you repeat their dialogues either. Coupled with the very confused writing, this one grated on my nerves like no other.
* At one point, I couldn’t even decide if I liked this book. To top it off, there are some explicit scenes that are really not necessary for the storyline.
*While hating a character really reflects on the author’s success, Karen really pissed me off. An absolute hypocrite and a bad mother, in general a selfish person, the moment she entered the scene, I would want to rip her head off. She wants to help the world but has no idea how to help her own family. This somehow made me angry towards the story, mostly because of how I didn’t like how it started.
* Did I say the narrative was repetitive? It kept harping on things over and over again, and it annoyed me to a degree that I was either in a mood to chuck the book across the room or get it over with as soon as possible.
*Finally, when you question yourself as to why you’re still reading this book, you should know that it’s a bad one and you should be running away from the train-wreck as fast as possible.

What I Did Like:
Despite how The Man on the Middle Floor made me feel all shades of angry red, there were a couple of points that I did like. Here they are:

*The book raises a valid point about divorced mothers. Of course, Karen sort of nullifies it all by the end, but it’s true, the point the author makes. If a man was divorced, he wouldn’t be expected to give up his career and help. But a woman is expected to put everything else down, including her career, and take care of the kids.
*It talks about a topic as sensitive as autism and shows how the extremes of the disease can really get, both for the person suffering from it and for the people around them.

Its two positive points, however, do nothing to nullify its negatives. Unfortunately, despite the sensitiveness of the topic, the story did nothing to touch my heart. And that’s a shame, because I was expecting so much from The Man on the Middle Floor. But this is just my opinion, of course. It just might work for you if you’re prepared to sit through the initial few pages.

Three tenants live in the same building and their stories connect and influence each other in unpredictable ways. Tann is a cop who walked out of the job because he feels like the world is changing too fast around him. He is no longer allowed to investigate crime, but instead needs to be a babysitter. Karen is a doctor who researches Autism. She is convinced that her contribution to the world will be crucial when she figures out how to integrate pacients into society, while she forgets to fuel her car and neglects her children. Nick, the only one whose account is in first person, is a collection of psychological illnesses. He seems to have Asperger’s and OCD. He also doesn’t seem to understand death and how fragile the human body is. I enjoyed the plot, with its unexpected (and some predictable) twists, but I couldn’t get past the characters. They are so unlikable that it was hard for me not to actively root against them. Tam is not so bad and Nick is sick and can’t help himself, but Karen is simply unredeemable. As a woman who doesn’t have and never wanted children, I understand how some people are just missing the motherly gene. As a human being, it is impossible for me to sympathize or simply understand a woman who sees her existing children as burdens and mistreats them in such a way. So, as much as I wanted to get into the story, I just hated the characters so much that I could not be invested in them.
I chose to read this book and all opinions in this review are my own and completely unbiased. Thank you, NetGalley/RedDoor Publishing!

A very different book to my usual choices, which are mainly crime thrillers. this not a light hearted tale in any respect, but still has the ability to make you laugh in parts, then reel in dismay / disgust the next. If you enjoy books that make you feel various emotions as well as entertain you with the story, then you will probably enjoy this. Makes you look at your neighbours slightly differently :-)

I tried this book despite the generally poor reviews but I just couldn't get into it. I found myself skipping parts and not really caring who died or how. So I knew this wasn't for me, and had to give up reading it. I just found the writing style a little boring to be honest, and I'm sorry to say that. I hate giving bad reviews, but this wasn't for me. The premise sounded great, but the book didn't deliver.

It was alright. The writing was well done, the characters really well fleshed out and convincing. Tam's "once a cop, always a cop" way was greatly written. And the hypocrisy of the worst mum of the year (Karen) was anger inducing and whenever that happens - evoking strong emotions in the reader - a book can't be bad as per se.

Yet it wanted too much and quickly nosedived into a "mental health issues overkill". Way, way too packed and personally I got a bad taste from making the autistic person do what they did.
What was it with all the sex? I don't have a problem with it or reading about it but it felt like a lazy way out to boil it all down to this one thing.

3-3.5 Stars****

The Man on the Middle Floor is told from different perspectives of three people who live in the same apartment building; Nick, a young man with Asperger's syndrome, Tam, a cop who recently lost his job, and Karen a doctor researching autism.
I do think this book is well written, I liked the different character perspectives, and how the author incorporated each individual's story into the main storyline. However, this book was upsetting and dark. It's not a bad story by any means, but it's heart breaking and tragic. Nick was extremely violent throughout the book and I felt this is an inaccurate portrayal of individuals with Asperger's syndrome and hope that those who read this do not stereotype individuals with Asperger's as being violent.

This was definitely an interesting title and I enjoyed reading this book, especially from the different perspectives. I don't know if I would rush right into another book from this author as I didn't always get on with the writing style, however I do intend to try out other works at some point in the future.

Nick, Tam and Karen in the same house on different floors. One is a policeman, another working on a medical research project and another struggling to find where he fits in. What I liked about the book was the way the author splits the stories concenetrating a chapter on each character and how their lives interact. In the early stages of the book I found there was almost too much focus on sex (!) which made me struggle to think what the book was about and what the point was. However, if you can get through that bit the middle of the book starts to weave really well building to a brilliant conclusion. What I liked was that as the story finished, it continued to explain where each one of them was a year on. If I could tone down the sex which I think is a distraction then I would give a five star rating.

The Man on the Middle Floor follows the lives of three people living in a London house. Tam on the ground floor is an ex-policeman, Karen on the top floor is researcher and Nick lives in the middle, a young man living by himself for the first time.

Nick is a complex character and its clear he has OCD along with aspergers and needs help. Karen recognises his symptoms and wants to use him as a research subject and gets Nick a job at the hospital where she works so she can observe him. Karen believes her work is so important that she has left her three children in pursuit of her research. Tams coppers nose knows something is not right, so removes Nicks rubbish from the bin and gives it to an ex colleague to process.

Whilst the synopsis indicates that a murder has taken place and that one is guilty, one wants to know why and one wants to know who did it, its not like that. We know who has done it, we are told very early on and its quite clear as to why they did it. There is no mystery there at all. In that aspect I felt mislead.

I enjoyed the story, its quite sad in a way by the end. I understand why Nick is as he is and reacted in this way though it doesnt excuse his actions. Karen's character is not one you can like at all, even though she is trying to help Nick, her head ( she seems to be lacking a heart in truth) is in the wrong place. Tam I liked as a character and Karens daughter Sarah is such a lovely teenager, thoughtful to her youngest brother and didn't deserve such a self-centred mother. Her fearlessness at the end was commendable. I'm not sure the stuff with Nick's grampa was necessary to.the story at all.

Though it was an easy read, I can't say I enjoyed this book so much. It opens like a joke: a policeman, a murderer/ case study and a researcher walk into ... each other.
But the tone becomes graver and graver, victims and disfunctional families are thrown in the deeper end of the pool to show us the real meaning of this narrative. It is, in fact, a well -researched topic, there are some statistics to back author's opinion, that children suffering from autism are more frequently victims of abuse and this can alter their behaviour forever. Nevertheless, this does not make neither Nick, nor the two other 'more normal' characters, easy to love and connect with. Two-thirds into the book, I found Nick's and Karen's deeds revolting. The author pins Nick's killing spree on abuse and trauma he suffered in childhood, but Karen's coldness and lack of involvment with her own kids whom she constantly dissapoints, is by choice. As I said, revolting, but also a bit doubtful. Can someone, whose main goal is to help people, withdraw so much, be so insensitive and self-centred? I found her a too flat of a character to be credidle. On the other hand, Sarah's monologue in their final confrontation is so mature and full of pathos for a 12 year old that, even if you agree with her, you can't help finding it equally incredible. Yes, Sarah speaks for all of us, including the author!
In conclusion, if the author's intention was to raise awareness about how autism affects the lives of not only of those suffering from it but also the caregivers, educators, society in general, I could say she succeeded, though the message was not so subtle.

I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

This novel was told from the very different perspectives of three people: a recognized police officer who recently quit, a struggling scientist and disaster of a mother, and our star, Nick, who struggles with Aspergers, and a myriad of other things.

A brutal murder takes place and of course the reader gets to see who did it and why. It’s just a matter of the other characters playing catch up and piecing it all together. It also really brings Autism to the forefront, the symptoms, how to help people that have this condition. It also dicusses abuse, depression, abandonment, family life, and it has a bit of sex thrown in for good measure.

I didn’t get into this as much as I should have. I couldn’t connect to the characters and I expected a bit more of a mystery. I certainly didn’t hate it though. For me, this was just ok.

There is so much to say about this novel. The setting: a three-flat house in London. The characters: Strangers to each other in the beginning. Maybe at the end, too. The bottom floor is Tam’s, a cop who has trouble with change, set on his old “intuitive” way of sorting out police work. On the top floor lives Karen who for her adult life has studied to understand the rising rates of Autism. Now, in the middle, Nick , a young man who suffers from Asperser's and who without his rigid system and sense of control finds that his whole life is indeed reliant on his mind and body. It’s a murder that brings the three together. It’s the solving of the crime which ends up connecting them. Five stars isn’t enough for this book that offers a suspenseful thought-provoking read.

This is a story about a young man, Nick, who is suffering (I use that word deliberately) from autism. He is deeply unhappy with his life as he feels barely in control and this is very upsetting for him. He lives in the middle flat of a house. Tam is a policeman who recently left his job unwillingly and is spending a lot of his time drinking in his flat on the ground floor of the house. Karen lives on the top floor and is a divorced academic, researching autism. Obviously their lives collide and the story runs from there. I felt very disturbed by the character of Nick, the autistic young man. Early in the story, Nick is violent to others due to his autism. This is not normal for autistic people and I felt it was reinforcing a negative stereotype that autistic people are dangerous and unpredictable. Once I read the whole story and Nick's upbringing is revealed, we can see why he behaved this way, but I felt that the harm had been done already early in the story. I would have marked it a lot higher if it weren't for this.

This book is quirky and unusually charming. We follow the lives of three people who share a house, though they know very little about each other. Tam, known as 'the cop', lives on the bottom floor and is grappling with issues related to his recent resignation from his job. Nick, on the middle floor has Asperger's and is living on his own for the first time. Karen, on the top floor, is an Autism researcher whose life is in turmoil. Her work absorbs all her energy leaving her children without her motherly care and attention. We bounce back and forth between these characters as their lives begin to intermingle and events unfold that will change the dynamic of their peaceful existence.

The Man on the Middle Floor brought to mind an adult version of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time. Though it is very different, the descriptions of the thought processes occurring in Nick's head brought his Asperger's to life in a very personal way. It makes it easier to understand the emotional detachment and feel the impact of his choices and deeds, even if he doesn't. Reading it, sometimes, felt like watching a train crash in slow motion. Being on the outside you can see why what happens happens and you feel powerless to stop it. It's a peculiar feeling that both unsettles and enlightens the reader on the condition of Asperger's.

I liked this book better than I thought I would. I felt such empathy for Nick and his situation and really understood and cared about Tam too. Karen, on the other hand, is certifiably crazy and drove me mad. There's always one, isn't there?