Man, It’s been a while since I’ve read/heard such a good book. 12h of a very well designed mystery which starts with a confession letter to the local MP pleading for a release. A release of out prison of a woman who has been convicted by a jury of a child’s murder.

The story starts like a dream come true for Rowan who finds a job posting for a nanny for a very rich family. An in-house position with a salary of over £50k – which for a London starving house-sharing kindergarden worker looks like a slice from heaven. The downside? The job is in a remote position in Scotland and the previous nannies have left because they thought the house to be haunted.

What made this book so attractive to me was the introduction of the setting – not an old house but an old-re-engineered house to be “smart”. Kettle that turns on in the morning, self-adjusting showers with different user profiles that give off different heating and water pressure settings, an app which controls the cameras, doors, windows, music, lights and so many other quirks.

What’s even better – the entire house is under full surveillance of the parents (mostly the mother as the father doesn’t seem to care). This lack of privacy combined with the controls going off seemingly at random, make the setting of a very modern “haunting” in a claustrophobic and big-brother state.

Rowan gets the job and is given a huge manual with the do’s and don’ts and is left with the children almost immediately for what looks like a 2-week span. The “not knowing” part is prominent in the first part of the book. Who are the children, why are they so against a nanny? Why are the parents happy to push off their kids to a complete stranger with no desire to observe and guide for at least a while? Who are the groundskeeper? Why does the lovely Scottish cleaner seem to hate Rowan? How do the HapiHome controls work?

To make things more confusing for the tech-fiend Rowan, she is hearing noises in the space over her bedroom at night. Creak-creak pacing.

Add lack of sleep and a short temper to the mix and we have Rowan – the screaming nanny. Scaring the kids, grabbing too hard, leaving bruises and hurt feelings. You start to doubt this woman, who, sounding so sincere at the beginning, is really not a killer.

I loved it. Mystery all the way up to the last page. I absolutely enjoyed it!