Playing Nice

How it reads

Playing Nice is thriller (domestic psychological thriller, specifically), and its dominant mood is tense. The suspense is the kind you feel in your shoulders. It moves fast: plot-driven and hard to put down, the kind of book that carries you along even when you're tired.

It's set in a suburban setting, in the present day, told in the third person across several viewpoints. Its central concerns are family, secrets and justice. In weight it sits in the middle: substantial without being heavy going.

It stands alone, so there's nothing else you need to read first or after. The ending resolves happily. At 416 pages it's an ordinary novel's length. It's well known, the kind of book most keen readers have heard of.