Three thirteen-year-olds meet by chance in the woods at the edge of the housing estate and witness a tragedy. Many years later, one of them dies in an accident. Beret is a violinist and lives alone in Paris. Mikkel has become a politician and wants to turn the world upside down, whilst Sigurd leads a quiet family life in a suburb that resembles the place where they grew up. All three have been deeply affected by what happened.

The death reveals family ties so strong they can suffocate you, and a darkness that looms where life should be safest. And when the tragedy resurfaces, it endangers everyone who was in the woods that day. Because once you’ve gone in there, there’s no guarantee you’ll get out again.

The Next-Door Neighbour is Flood’s most ambitious thriller yet and the first in the It Takes a Village trilogy, three loosely interconnected novels following people who grew up in the same suburban housing estate in the 1990s.