To Catch A Creeper by Ellie Campbell

Synopsis

Cathy is riding high in her brand-new job at a (surprisingly bitchy) top London advertising agency working with best friend Rosa. But when Rosa’s pregnancy goes amiss and enemies sabotage her new career, she finds herself leading a chaotic double life of lies and deception, hiding a shameful secret from all, especially husband Declan who appears in the throes of a nervous breakdown. 

Meanwhile she’s agreed to unmask the notorious Crouch End Creeper, a burglar terrorizing their neighbourhood. Little does she know that her meddling, assisted by fellow mothers (the Wednesday Once Weeklies) and the Neighbourhood Watch, will lead their dangerous opponent to murder. And that it's not only the tall elegant transvestite who is placing herself at risk..


Review

To Catch a Creeper follows on from Looking for La La which was out last year, so it has the same characters, with a few extras, but obviously the main character Cathy. Despite this though, To Catch a Creeper is a stand alone story, so you do not need to read Looking for La La first. This was a super quick read, read it in about a day.

A burgler is on the loose in Crouch End called The Crouch End Creeper and I liked the mystery surrounding who it could be. But I would have liked more of a focus on who it could be. I thought it took a background role in the story, rather than being the main focus. Also I know fiction isn't meant to be real, but there were just some things that happened that I couldn't quite get my head around. However I know this was meant to be a lighthearted read and it definitely achieved that.

Cathy is quite like me and is actually quite annoying and frustrating at times. She just wants people to like her, so she lets them walk all over her feelings and this isn't helped by the fact that she hates confrontation. It was weird reading it as it was like reading about me from another persons point of view and actually got me thinking about the way I act, so it was unexpectedly thought provoking in that sense. That said there are a great array of characters in this and they all seem to have more to them than meets the eye, so some characters you thought were genuine, turned out not to be and I liked this element in the story.

The writing and conversations are written in quite a quick-fire way, so sometimes it was easy to lose track of what was happening and I had to re-read a few sentences. Cathy clearly always has a million and one things going on in her mind, so this perhaps explained the unfinished sentences and jumping to another topic. However it definitely helped the book keep its fast pace and think it was part of the reason that I read it so quickly.

If you're looking for a fun, light, quick read, this one definitely fits the bill.

3/5

To Catch A Creeper is available from Amazon UK