A Sociopath’s Guide to a Successful Marriage by M.K Oliver

Meet Lalla Rook. She's got a to-do list like any other suburban mum: get her daughter into a top private school, move to a fancier neighborhood, help her husband climb the banking career ladder and have another baby. Oh, and clean up the dead guy she just stabbed seven times. This is how the novel begins and it's brilliant!

What makes this novel so fun (in a twisted way) is that Lalla treats all these tasks exactly the same. Murder? School applications? Whatever. Lalla doesn’t care what anyone thinks. She's a sociopath trying to blend in with the upper-middle-class London crowd and this setup is used to highlight society’s obsession with status.

What's refreshing is that Lalla doesn't do any of the things we expect from female characters. She just takes what she wants and doesn't lose sleep over it. The writing is sharp and moves quickly without losing its wit: think Killing Eve, but at the school gates.

The way Lalla tells her story is what really makes this novel work. Her thoughts about suburban life and disappointing husbands are laugh-out-loud funny. The story moves fast with Lalla covering her tracks, blackmailing people to help her and framing others for her crimes, all while trying to maintain her picture-perfect life. It’s not surprising that this book is being adapted as a TV series, because Lalla is the kind of character you can’t ignore. She’s ruthless, unapologetic and magnetic, even though she’s awful. At no point is she trying to redeem herself or become a better person. She's just a sociopath pretending to be normal, and watching her try to keep that act together is fascinating.

M.K. Oliver used to be a teacher and after years of working in schools, he decided to chase his dream of becoming a writer. The idea for Lalla came from watching how far parents will go to make their kids happy and then asking himself, what if someone took it to the absolute extreme? He lives in North London, the neighborhood that inspired the book's setting.

Reviewer: Andrea Molloy

Hemlock Press (HarperCollins)