Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
When Neighbors Go Bad
181 Plays11 months ago
In this week’s episode, Brook and Sarah explore mysteries with bad neighbors who turn your home–the place you should feel safest–into a dangerous place.
Discussed
Rear Window (1954 film) Alfred Hitchock
The House Across the Lake (2022) Riley Sager
The Manor House (2023) Gilly Macmillan
The Watcher (2022 series) Netflix
Those People Next Door (2023) Kia Abdullah
When No One is Watching (2020) Alyssa Cole
Girls in the Garden (2015) Lisa Jewell
And Then She Was Gone (2017) Lisa Jewell
One Little Secret (2019) Kate Holahan
The Woman in the Window (2018) A.J. Finn
The Woman in the House Across the Street From the Girl in the Window (2022 series) Netflix
For more information
Instagram: @cluedinmystery
Contact us: hello@cluedinmystery.com
Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
Sign up for our newsletter: https://cluedinmystery.com/clued-in-chronicle/
Join the Clued in Cartel: https://cluedinmystery.com/clued-in-cartel/
Transcript
Recommended
![[Re-release] Celebrity Authors image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/61e1c276e3ec42007857cff9/6bf85c27-5b4b-472c-9f00-1aceb11c14f7.jpg)
![[Re-release] Modern Greats: Sue Grafton image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/61e1c276e3ec42007857cff9/6f1dd042-325d-4743-a520-2db110a960b9.jpg)
![[Re-release] Mysteries in Unusual Formats image](https://media.zencastr.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=112,quality=85/image-files/61e1c276e3ec42007857cff9/d8f895fc-5446-494f-b2f8-5a3f6b131e98.jpg)
Transcript
Introductions and Greetings
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery. Hi Brooke. Hi Sarah. Happy Friday.
00:00:24
Speaker
Happy Friday.
Why are neighborhoods perfect for thrillers?
00:00:25
Speaker
How are you? I'm good. And I'm looking forward to talking about neighbors going bad with you. So a neighborhood, of course, refers to a specific residential area, such as a few adjoining streets, a subdivision, or an apartment complex. But it suggests more than just a geographical location.
00:00:47
Speaker
A neighborhood carries with it a culture and a set of social expectations. The word conjures images of block parties and sharing cups of sugar. The neighborhood is an extension of the surrounding homes. A neighborhood is supposed to be safe, a place for families to grow up, an area where people can be themselves and let their guards down.
00:01:10
Speaker
But doing so can also make those same people vulnerable. And living in close proximity to others is the perfect setup for a thriller or a mystery. Authors ask and answer the question, what happens when the neighborly feelings fade when neighbors go bad?
Rear Window and Voyeurism
00:01:30
Speaker
Who can forget the opening scene of Rear Window when Jimmy Stewart, as Jeff Jeffries, opens his window blinds to reveal the courtyard to his apartment complex?
00:01:40
Speaker
Also revealed are the windows to each of his neighbor's apartments. He sees them involved in their mundane daily activities. They're exercising or hanging out their laundry, cooking or practicing hobbies. He tries to stop himself from watching, but the urge to catch a glimpse into his neighbor's private lives is strong. Even when all he sees is a rather boring ordinary day, we know that he will soon see something he's not supposed to, something he will regret.
Pre-Pandemic Popularity of Neighborhood Thrillers
00:02:11
Speaker
The neighborhood trouble trope is very popular in domestic thrillers. The number of results I got doing a quick search for books that include the word neighbor in their titles was astounding. And at first, I assumed that most of them had probably been published post 2020 after we'd all been cooped up during the pandemic.
00:02:31
Speaker
I figured authors took to their keyboards after being stuck at home for months on end imagining all those sordid stories. But not so. It seems that the idea of creating crime novels about neighborhoods has been alive and well probably before but at least ever since Hitchcock directed that award-winning film.
00:02:51
Speaker
Sarah, you and I discussed in our episode about workplace thrillers, how those situations are ripe for the kind of interactions and relationships that can lead to great tension and deep conflicts. Neighborhood thrillers are too. I mean, who hasn't had an issue with a neighbor over a barking dog, loud music, or a trash disposal?
00:03:14
Speaker
Plus, proximity allows neighbors to learn each other's secrets or have secret interactions with one another. Places like courtyards, walking paths, or other common areas are perfect for eavesdropping and watching.
Observing Neighbors as a Thriller Theme
00:03:31
Speaker
In fact, we see the use of binoculars by characters over and over in these stories, or in Jimmy Stewart's case, a camera with a telephoto lens.
00:03:42
Speaker
The neighborhood setting isn't only good for thrillers, though. It's also the backdrop for a lot of detective fiction. In fact, we could argue that every cozy is a neighborhood mystery, given that they're all set in small towns or villages where most everyone knows everyone else.
Rural vs Urban Neighborhood Settings
00:03:59
Speaker
I, for one, have lived most of my life without close neighbors. Aside for a few years here and there, I have usually lived in rural areas with lots of empty space between homes.
00:04:11
Speaker
I think this actually makes me more fascinated by this trope where people get overly involved in each other's lives and why I'm so interested in this conversation with you today, Sarah.
Potential of Varied Neighborhood Settings
00:04:24
Speaker
Well, thank you, Brooke. And I will share that I have, certainly for my adult life, lived in apartment buildings and spent time looking out the window and seeing, not necessarily into other people's apartments, but imagining what's happening inside other people's apartments.
00:04:43
Speaker
Right. And that's so fun. And a lot of the fiction that you've read probably then spurs that on. Like, you know, you watch rear window and then because that's the setting that you spend your days in, it gets your imagination going.
00:04:58
Speaker
Exactly. I really liked what you said about the number of books that have neighbor in the title. I was looking at the list of books that I've read and really only read them in the last year or so that have next door in the title. And it's the same kind of thing, right? It's playing on that.
00:05:22
Speaker
neighborhood trope. And I think there's like so many of the topics that we've discussed. There's a bit of a spectrum, right? There's that isolated community where there's
Fear in Neighborhood Thrillers
00:05:37
Speaker
one or two houses that are in a more rural environment and your next door neighbor is the only person for miles and that person turns out to be full of secrets and maybe a little bit creepy.
00:05:52
Speaker
Uh, and then the other end of the spectrum is, as you say, that, you know, tight knit neighborhood where they have block parties and they, you know, um, spend lots of time in each other's homes, but also have a lot of secrets that they're keeping from each other. Exactly. Yeah. Very well put. This is true. Like the neighborhood might be.
00:06:17
Speaker
rural, but it's this remote setting and then that adds that layer in of there's no one around to help you. A book that came to mind when you said that was The House Across the Lake by Riley Sager because it's a vacation neighborhood where you see the homes all around a lake, but then yeah, probably no resources for miles.
00:06:41
Speaker
That's a really great example. I was thinking of a book that I read recently called The Manor House by Gillie Macmillan, and it's that isolated two houses that are within walking distance, but there's nothing else around them. And yeah, there's lots of secrets and lies between the people who live in those two homes.
00:07:03
Speaker
And I think the thing about any of these kind of neighborhood thrillers is, you know, your home is where you're supposed to feel the safest, right? And the idea that there's someone who can see into your day-to-day life or who is somehow manipulating things in your home is a very scary feeling.
00:07:33
Speaker
Yeah, I actually think the sensation of fear that I have experienced reading some of these almost borders on the same feeling I get if I'm reading a horror novel just because of that, like the idea that you're not safe in your own space or in your own.
Perfect Neighborhoods with Dark Secrets
00:07:50
Speaker
You know, a lot of these stories, you see the children go out to play and they're supposed to be safe because it's like a shared courtyard or something. And then, you know, you know that they're not because there's that one neighbor or maybe a set of neighbors, or even you don't know who the bad neighbor is, but something is going on in that scenario. And it can be very frightening.
00:08:16
Speaker
Well, and that kind of picturesque, perfect on the outside veneer that you might see if you're driving down a street that you haven't been before. Say you're looking for a new house, right? And you see all of these houses and everybody looks very happy and everything is painted very nicely.
00:08:42
Speaker
You think everyone's got a perfect life, and then you realize that actually there are some secrets behind these perfectly painted fences. As a reader, you get to see what those secrets are, and some of them are pretty wild.
Unrealistic Coincidences in Plots
00:08:56
Speaker
Yes, I think that this trope also has been one of the main categories where I find some outlandish coincidences. Because the other thing that you assume when you're in a larger neighborhood is that you know one another because you all live nearby, but otherwise you're strangers. Your lives aren't interconnected, right? And a lot of these stories end up being that
00:09:21
Speaker
actually two people, you know, grew up in the same town or were on the same plane last Friday or something, you know, and you just like, there's some strange coincidences that happen to make the stories line up. Um, so you just kind of have to take that with a grain of salt when those, those happen.
00:09:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think I would agree with that. I think some of it is, you know, if you were to read all of the these kind of neighborhood thrillers, you would think that everybody around you is hiding something all the time and hiding some very big secrets. Yes. And having clandestine meetings with one another behind your back.
00:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like I'm missing out with my pretty pedestrian and mundane life. Exactly. One of the things that I noticed with some of these books is
00:10:19
Speaker
Often, the neighborhood is established.
Social Commentary in Thrillers
00:10:23
Speaker
A lot of the residents have been there for a long time, and it's a new couple or a new family who moves in, and they find that, oh, you know what? There is something not quite right with this other group of people who've all lived here for years.
00:10:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's a great observation. That's true. They come in and disrupt the agreements or something that have already been held by the longstanding residents. That definitely happened in a Netflix series that I watched that was all about a neighborhood called The Watcher. In that situation, it's just as you described, Sarah, they're going to move to this grand neighborhood. The houses are huge. The lawns are perfect and immaculate.
00:11:09
Speaker
So everything looks picture perfect and once they move in they start getting these letters in their mailbox of someone's telling them that they're watching them and they know what that what you know, we know what you're doing and and again start to find out that these people that look like great neighbors great people to live next door to All have their own secrets and are maybe playing a part in the letters and they can't just determine that and yeah
00:11:39
Speaker
It's very much the neighborhood trouble that you just described. It's funny you bring that up, Brooke. I only watched a couple of episodes of The Watcher. I know I've said this before, like I have a pretty weak tolerance for high tension viewing. And so I couldn't get past, I think it was the second episode.
00:12:03
Speaker
It was, as you say, it was high tension because we talked about that earlier that, you know, God, you don't want to think about this happening in real life, but we nearly didn't finish watching it because it got very repetitive. So, um, and it doesn't, I will say, come to a great conclusion. Um, one of those stories that doesn't necessarily have a definitive ending. So.
00:12:29
Speaker
So you mentioned moving into a house and seeing all of these neighbors who look perfect, but when you move into a neighborhood, you don't really do any research into who the neighbors are, right? Like that's not part of that moving process. It's just the particular unit or the particular home that you're moving into that
00:12:52
Speaker
that you would have information about. I read a book called Those People Next Door by Kia Abdullah, where a family moves into an affluent neighborhood that is predominantly white and the family that moves in is not. And there are little signs that maybe they are not welcome in this neighborhood.
00:13:17
Speaker
And things escalate very quickly and very surprisingly. So there's vandalism, a pet goes missing. There's no murder in this book, but one of the sons ends up being quite gravely injured.
00:13:38
Speaker
And yeah, so it was really interesting because there was this kind of social commentary that was in this story. And I noticed that in a couple of books in this space that there is that room to explore some of those societal tensions that exist, right? Another one that has certainly
00:14:04
Speaker
some social commentary is when no one is watching by Alyssa Cole. And so that set in Brooklyn and gentrification is a real theme of that book, which is happening in a lot of places where more affluent people are moving into traditionally poorer neighborhoods and displacing the residents who've been there for generations.
00:14:28
Speaker
This one got a little bit wild, I will say, but it was a really good book.
Lisa Jewell's Neighborhood Themes
00:14:39
Speaker
Well, if someone is looking for a place to start in reading in this sub-genre, I think that you can't go wrong with Lisa Jewell. She has really kind of carved out a specialty, I feel. And a lot of her books circle around the idea of neighborhoods. This week I read Watching You, and this one is
00:15:04
Speaker
About a boy in a neighborhood who is watching what's going on, but there's also someone else that's watching as well and Then there's girls in the garden that she wrote and this is that idea of like terrace houses who share a common courtyard And then you and I Sarah for a recent what would you do episode? discussed and then she was gone which also is
00:15:32
Speaker
concentrates on kind of an urban neighborhood where people run into each other at the market or in the park or at a school where they see common people and get involved with each other's lives. Those are great recommendations Brooke and yeah I thought about our What Would You Do book as fitting in this space.
00:15:52
Speaker
I, you know, looking through the list of books that I've read in the last couple of years, I realized that I've read a lot of books in this space. Because as you say, I think, you know, it's a pretty popular trope, particularly in the domestic thriller subgenre.
00:16:07
Speaker
And I read one called One Little Secret by Kate Holahan. And so neighbors rent a holiday home together while their kids are at summer camp. I don't know any of my neighbors well enough that I would ever consider.
00:16:24
Speaker
renting a shared accommodation for a week. But these neighbors all know each other well enough that that seemed very reasonable. Anyway, one of them ends up dead. And so this is partly a domestic thriller because there's lots of secrets and lies, but also partly a police procedural told from the police investigator's point of view and then also told from the point of view of some of the neighbors.
00:16:54
Speaker
I thought that was an interesting kind of play on both of those subgenres. Another book that I thought of when I was looking at my list of books read was The Woman in the Window by A.J. Finn. And this is kind of a play on maybe a modern rear window where the character thinks she's seen something happen to one of her neighbors.
00:17:20
Speaker
and tries to figure out what's gone on.
Comparing The Woman in the Window to Rear Window
00:17:24
Speaker
I think I read that really quickly. I think it was quite a gripping story if I remember correctly. And I have to confess that I have not read the book, but I have seen the movie and did enjoy it a lot. And yeah, I think that's a great description. It's a modern day rear window and plays with all these different components that we've already discussed.
00:17:47
Speaker
And I think that we would be remiss if we didn't bring up the fact that this trope has been parodied by the woman in the house across the street from the girl in the window.
Parody Series Mention
00:18:01
Speaker
You know, it's a popular thing when you get spoofed, right?
00:18:05
Speaker
I think we've talked about that. I don't remember, was it a show or? Yeah, it was it was a series, right? I think we've talked about it before, maybe in our domestic thriller episode. But yeah, that was a that was a very good spoof of the genre for sure.
00:18:25
Speaker
Yeah, I found it funny. I learned that people actually didn't necessarily understand that it was supposed to be a parody. And apparently there were a long list of internet conversations about how over the top it was. And because these people thought that it was supposed to be a real drama and Kristen Bell just got the hugest kick out of it. So I thought that was a really fun fact.
00:18:55
Speaker
Well, thanks Brooke.
Reflections on Neighborhood Mysteries
00:18:57
Speaker
I think this has been a really fun conversation to talk about the neighborhood trope. It has. And we'll all be thinking about what's going on in those houses as we go through residential areas from now on.
Podcast Outro and Engagement
00:19:12
Speaker
Thank you everyone for joining us today on another Clued In Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah. And we both love mystery.
00:19:22
Speaker
Clued In Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app. Visit our website at cluedinmystery.com to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued In Chronicle, or to join our paid membership, The Clued In Cartel. We're on social media at Clued In Mystery.