The Lonely Hearts Crime Club by Tanya Bullock

From Goodreads

An elderly resident of an inner-city tower block is brutally attacked and left for dead. Her neighbours, a pregnant alcoholic, a vulnerable youth, a failed actress and a cameraman with a dark secret, are thrown together in their search for answers. Misfits and loners, they are forced to confront uncomfortable realities about themselves and each other, as their investigation leads them towards the shocking finale.

About the Author

Tanya Bullock is a college lecturer, writer and award-winning filmmaker. She lives in the UK with her husband and two children. She has a passion for foreign culture and languages (inherited from her French mother) and, in her youth, travelled extensively throughout Australia, America, Asia and Europe. As a filmmaker, she gained local recognition, including funding and regional television broadcast, through ITV’s First Cut scheme, two nominations for a Royal Television Society Midlands Award, and, in 2010, a Royal Television Society Award in the category of best promotional film. On maternity leave in 2011 and in need of a creative outlet, Tanya began to write That Special Someone, the story of a young woman with learning difficulties and her quest to find love. It was a finalist for The People's Book Prize and The Beryl Bainbridge First Time Author Award 2016. In 2020, it was republished and retitled Desperately Seeking Normal. Her second novel, Homecoming, a love story with an unexpected twist, was published in 2016. The Lonely Hearts Crime Club is Tanya's third novel. A cozy mystery with a shocking finale, it was published in the spring of 2019 and longlisted for the Guardian’s Not The Booker Prize in the same year. All Tanya's novels are published by Blackbird Digital Books.

My thoughts

Thank to the Publishers via NetGalley for the opportunity to read this in exchange for an honest review. I have had this book sat on my Kindle for some time and thought it was about time that I got round to reading it.

I gave this a 3 stars or 6/10.  This is not the first book that I have read by Tanya Bullock, I have previously read Desperately Seeking Normal and my review of it can be read on my blog.

This is a cosy story, at it's heart is a crime that has occurred against an elderly lady, as she was beaten up and left with the injuries that she had sustained at the hands of the perpetrator.  As a group of apparent misfits and lonely people living near her begin to group together to try and solve the mystery as to who did this and why this has happened to her, their lives begin to link together.  Can they solve the crime before anyone else falls victim or was this a one off intentional assault?

Told from the POV of multiple characters as they become acquainted with one another in an attempt to try and solve the crime.  They are all flawed in their own way and have problems of their own of one type or another.  Who among them can be trusted and are any of them the actual perpetrator?  This was a gentle story that kept you guessing and easily kept me turning page after page in order to find out what was happening.  Told in small chapters this I felt was the Authors intention. 

Looking forward to reading more books by this Author in due course.