This book is great! Would definitely recommend. Thanks so much to NetGalley and the publisher for the ARC.

Nothing eventful ever happens in sleepy, rural Carmac, France until the Langlois family arrives along with murder. Sedira has used a true crime for the basis of her story but creatively infuses the novel with deep psychological insight and slowly escalating tension. This is an examination of how the average person can be pushed to the brink.

Based on true events, a short novel about class and race in a small village. Done with integrity but no great spark. Plain fare.

PEOPLE LIKE THEM is the first English translation from an Algerian-born French author of three previous novels. This was daaaaaaark. It is very short (under 200 pages) and goes by quickly. Inspired by a real-life massacre, I don't think this is one I could recommend widely, but if you enjoyed THE PERFECT NANNY, I'd suggest you pick this one up as well. It's also not really a "mystery" because you know the ending from the beginning, but it is definitely a psychological novel.

Inspired by true events, People Like Them is a short and shocking exploration of what can happen when the worst case scenario becomes chilling reality.

In 2003, in the Alpine Haute-Savoie region of France, the five members of the Flactif family went missing, later discovered murdered by their next-door neighbor over a seemingly minor dispute. Samira Sedira has taken these events and extrapolated them into the fictional People Like Them; her English language debut, and an impressive one, at that.

Alternating between past and present, the mystery is not who did it – we know that from the start – but rather what could have pushed them to that point. It all unfolds a layer at a time, slowly building a picture and a foundation to a story that leaves the reader feeling badly for everyone involved. This may be a fictional take, but the author deftly avoids the easier black and white morality in favor of the much more complex and realistic shades of grey.

This kind of novel takes a delicate hand, and the author doesn’t waste a single word. Nothing takes place in a vacuum, and packed into these pages is an honest, but sensitive, portrayal of a confluence of events and timing that leads to the murder of an entire family. It’s an intense read, almost claustrophobic – but to expand it would have diluted the impact. It should be shocking – but it also has to be readable, and it’s a fine line that the author and the translator have managed with precision. Most importantly, perhaps, this is the kind of book that you shouldn’t pick up late at night, because you won’t be putting it down again any time soon. People Like Them is the best kind of compulsive, and will keep you glued to its pages until they’re done.

I adored this. Cannot wait to see more from Samira Sedira. I read a lot of crime/murder stories, and it is rare for me to find such a unique narrative that feels so fresh.

Thanks to Penguin Books and NetGalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review. This book is loosely inspired by a homicide that took place in a small French village in 2003. The premise was good and I didn’t mind the slow burn, but it was a bit anticlimactic in my opinion. It was rather short so I didn’t feel like the characters got the chance to fully develop although I enjoyed the story.

Fast-paced and original, this is an excellent addition to the crowded thriller genre. A recommended purchase for collections where the genre is popular.

This is shocking, blasting, jaw dropping, shaking you to the core kind of unconventional read!

It’s questioning how far the boiled and bottled up anger, the resentment, envy can push a regular person to commit brutal crimes!

When you think you lost everything in your life: your dreams, your financial stability, your pride, your dignity, what will you do? Blaming others, being obsessed to avenge , resenting the other people’s lives may result with deadly consequences!

The book opens with the pastoral depictions about soothing, remote, peaceful town named Carmac: those remarkable depictions also warn us something terrifying is about to come out like the silence before the storm.

Well, at another chapter you find out an old athlete who lost his dreams at a deadly accident, a coach: Constant Guilliot : a regular member of the town committed a vicious crime: he massacred an entire family: starting with three kids and then he waited for the parents’ arrival, shooting them at their back! Those people were his neighbors! He ran away from the place and wash his bloody hands at the frozen pond and he came back to steal regular belongings of his neighbors including cds, dvds because he was still thinking those people stole everything his family needed!

Why a man commits such a brutal, wild crime! How his inner circle didn’t see it coming! How his wife didn’t realize the insanity slowly took control of her husband ?

We’re going back and forth between the trial of Constant and the moving of Bakary and Sylvia Langlois’ moving to the next house to Guilliot family. We see how their children become friends and his Bakary and Constant hang out after work, Langlois’ gorgeous parties at their well designed, modern, grandiose chalet.

Everything seems peaceful around the small town and they seem to get along with the outsiders. What did instantly change ? Why did those people turn into enemies?

The book is definitely captivating one sit read! You just witness the rooting of humanity in your own eyes. It’s scary, thought provoking, confusing!

The story is narrated by Constant’s wife Anna: who is left behind and whose life is tainted by this brutal crime. You can easily relate with her and see the events from her eyes and perspective.

The ending was heart wrenching as you may imagine. But it may be the best written ending to a complex story!

After finishing this book, I think I’ll keep thinking this story for a few weeks. This is one of the books haunt you forever and the author did a brilliant and stunning job to create this claustrophobic, intense, dark atmosphere of small town by building high tension and sharing the remarkable small town people portraits.

Special thanks to Netgalley and PENGUIN GROUP for sharing this remarkable digital reviewer copy with me in exchange my honest opinions.