Book Review: The House Sitter by Ellery Kane

My Rating:

3.75⭐

Iris Duncan, an almost seventy-year-old widow lives alone in her posh Pacific Heights home. She is unable to take care of the property on her own and is in trouble with the HOA, a fact that she is constantly reminded of by her annoying neighbor in his pushy way. She also feels unsafe living alone and suspects that burglars enter her home frequently. A chance meeting with a clumsy waitress in a café leads to Iris offering Lydia and Seth McKay jobs as caretakers/house sitters to help her with the day-to-day work involved in the upkeep of her home as well as daily chores. She offers them room and board at her house and treats them, especially Lydia, like family, a feeling that is reciprocated, with Lydia taking care of her, cooking her meals and making sure she takes her medication on time.

Fast-forward a few months, the dispatcher receives a frantic 911 call for help from Iris and hears what sounds like a gunshot. When the police arrive there is evidence of a struggle and much more but no trace of Iris or her “house sitters”.

What happened to Iris? Are Lydia and Seth truly deserving of the special treatment they received from Iris or did they have hidden motives for befriending her? Was Iris truly as helpless as she projected or did she suspect Lydia and Seth?

With its crisp writing and well-paced narrative that switches between “Before” and “After” Iris’s disappearance, Ellery Kane’s The House Sitter is an engaging and suspenseful story that kept me interested till the end. I found the ending a bit lackluster and felt there should have more to the story. However, I enjoyed the build-up and the surprises along the way. Each of the characters was well fleshed out and I enjoyed former musician turned rookie cop Maureen Shaw’s trajectory and her dogged determination to unravel the mystery defying her superiors and risking her job to get to the truth. I hope we get more stories featuring her from the author. This was my first Ellery Kane novel and I would be interested in picking up more of her books in the future.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bookouture for the digital review copy of this book. All opinions expressed here are mine.