Lisa Jewell is a popular and prolific writer who started out writing romance and general fiction before switching to mystery and thrillers some years later.
When you read the synopsis on the back of this 2025 thriller – Don’t Let Him In – you could be excused for thinking it is about a young woman with a charming but abusive boyfriend, which is a fairly common scenario in these kinds of books. You would be wrong.
To set the scene, imagine a beautiful big, white and airy house overlooking the Channel, belonging to Paddy Swann, a celebrated chef who was recently pushed under a tube train by a homicidal schizophrenic.
In the house we find the shell-shocked remains of the family: his widow Nina, his son and his 20-something daughter, Ash. Ash has been living at home for some time, having had some problems at work and with her mental health. This is now the aftermath.
After some months, an old friend of Paddy’s, Nick, a very handsome 50-something, makes contact and slowly moves into their lives and home. Ash is rather suspicious of him; her mother, Nina, falls for him hook, line and sinker.
After this initial story we meet another middle-aged man, Al. Married but with a lover for whom he is trying to leave his wife, preferably with a load of her money. The story moves along for a while, switching between these two men, before we suddenly leap back five years to a man called Damien, who also has a wife whom he wants to leave for his new lover, again hopefully with some of her money in his pocket. Initially there was some confusion as to how these three men were connected but after a few chapters, we had it figured out.
Because Ash is suspicious, she starts to do a little digging and soon discovers enough to understand what ‘Nick’ actually is – a scammer who is after her mother’s money. It would spoil the surprise to reveal what happens next but as tensions rise, things do escalate. And even if is slightly ambiguous, the ending is very satisfying indeed!
Our verdict
The plot of Don’t Let Him In is a lot more complicated than we’ve described. In the beginning it’s a little confusing, but you soon realise that here we are seeing a psychopath at work.
This is one of those books that is really hard to put down. You understand what’s happening, but the twists come thick and fast so you don’t want to stop reading. The characters are well described, particularly Ash who is good, complicated, troubled and disturbed, but also highly intelligent and persistent. Her mother was less easy to see, but still believable.
The locations were so well portrayed you can easily see them in your mind’s eye as well. The South Coast property, with its fabulous views towards France; a pretty cottage in the Cotswolds; a modern house in Reading; a rundown flat in London, and many more.
But the main revelation was the man himself. So often in this kind of book the main character is a young woman in trouble – a damsel in distress, if you like. We found it refreshing to have as a main character a middle-aged man like this; and Lisa Jewell gives a pretty good insight into how the mind of a psychopath works. It’s chilling and very real.
This was a cleverly plotted story – immediate and exciting. A real page-turner, in fact. And although it might not stay in your memory for more than a few months, while you’re reading it you don’t take that into consideration. You just keep reading. We both really liked it and give it 4+ Stars.
Review by: Freyja and MadDog
What’s in a Star?
At Oundle Crime we work on the basis that 5 Stars = ‘Outstanding and unforgettable. A book you can’t wait to tell others about’; and 4 Stars = ‘A good book with an interesting, layered story that you will still remember after a month’.
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