How could a seemingly normal person commit an atrocious crime? How could that persons loved ones ever come to terms with it afterwards? And how well can you ever really know your own spouse? Are you as much to blame for their actions? Should you have seen it coming?

These are all questions that Anna Guillot asks herself about her husband, Constant.

It all starts so innocently: Constant and Bakary Langlois are good friends, even if the differences in their financial statuses are vast. Bakary starts to help other neighbours with their investments, and Constant is upset that he doesn’t seem to want to help him. Perhaps this should have been Constant’s warning.

Relationships change between the two families when Anna starts to work as the Langlois’ housekeeper/ cleaner, because how can they stay the same under these conditions?

It’s just one thing after another, until the final denouement where Anna is left to pick up the pieces of her family’s destroyed life, her guilt driving her? Was Constant racist? Were his actions based around those thoughts?

This was really disturbing and quite a distressing read. It was well worth it though.

This was not the book for me. I felt the writing was very one-dimensional. The characters needed more depth. I was bored.

Keenly Observed, Chilling…
A seemingly idyllic French village populated by people living seemingly idyllic lives. Everything is peaceful there - until an act of unimaginable violence changes everything. Based on a true crime, this chilling piece gives a crisp insight into the tangled web of jealousies, emotional turmoil and class and racial tensions underlying these shocking acts. Dark, keenly observed and immensely chilling.

A really solid addition to the genre; reliable, if a little predictable in places. Would recommend if you know what you want from this sort of book, as it definitely delivers that.

Everything started one Saturday in July…

Anna and Constant Guillot and their two daughters live in the remote mountain village of Carmac. Everyone in Carmac knows each other – that is until Bakary and Sylvia Langlois arrive with their three children, the first black family to have lived in the village.

The new family’s impressive chalet and expensive cars are in stark contrast with the modesty of those of their neighbours, yet despite their initial differences, the Langlois and the Guillots form an uneasy friendship. But when the Guillot's finances come under strain, the underlying class and racial tensions of their relationship come to a breaking point, and the unthinkable happens…

How could a seemingly ‘normal’ person commit an atrocious crime? And how can that person's loved ones ever come to terms with it afterwards?
The story grips you from the start and keeps you hanging on till the end.

People Like Them is loosely based on a real life multiple homicide that occurred in France in 2003. A family were murdered by their neighbour and racism was suspected as the motive although this was never reported in the media. Samira Sedira has explored this theme and expanded on the true crime in her short, snappy novella.

This book throws you straight into the court action of Constant Guillot as he takes the stand in his murder trial. Narrated by his wife Anna we soon get a picture of what transpired on the day of the crime and what lead up to Constant murdering a whole family.

I liked the stark narrative of the book, it was basic but drove home the way a mind can twist its way into performing such terrible acts. Racism, wealth, jealousy, social status all play a part in the unravelling of this tale. I did find the ending disappointing, I didn't feel like it went anywhere and it was pretty anticlimactic. However, I did love the setting of the small, isolated village and the temperaments this instills in its villagers and I found the trial sections very interesting. It was an OK read in the end with some taut moments.

Sometimes you read a book and it takes you on a wild ride where you have no idea what is going on, you're just having all this random information thrown at you in a way which makes no sense at all and it's only towards the end of the book that all the threads come together and you see the end result of the tapestry that has been woven in front of you. I felt this way about Lincoln in the Bardo and I feel the same way about People Like Them.

Knowledge of what happened and different views come at you from all angles in this book and you feel yourself helpless, just on a tide of information that keeps coming whilst your brain tries to figure out what has gone on.

Some people like this and some people don't..I usually don't but with this book I found myself wanting to know more and more and more and then the book finished.

3/5

I think it is especially clever when an author maintains tension in a story despite the fact that the crime you’re reading about has already been described in the first chapter or so. This is exactly what Samira Sedira does and I loved it.
The characters were so interesting and believable and the sad dark story was told to perfection.
This review was my audiobook review

This atmospheric, high-impact little read sucked me in and I devoured it in one afternoon. People like Them is a translated fiction read for me (as it was written originally in French) and tells the story of a mass murder in a small French village. That’s a tantalising enough premise – then I discovered that the story is based on a true crime, so it all became even more interesting.

In 2003, in a small village in the Haute-Savoie region of France, a family of five was murdered, the parents and three children. The family’s neighbour confessed to killing them and a mysterious story emerged from the facts surrounding the case.

People Like Them gives us a fictional account of this horrific event, with Anna Guillot taking centre stage as our narrator. She is the partner of Constant Guillot, the man on trial for killing his neighbours, Bakary, Sylvia and their three young children.

I really enjoyed the themes the author explored within this story. As well as looking into the possible motivation as to why a man would suddenly one day kill the family next door, she looks at events from the POV of a woman who is now blindsided, dealing with the aftermath of discovering the father of her children is capable of such a brutal act:

The woman who one day becomes the murderer’s wife shoulders a responsibility almost more damning than that of the murderer himself, because she wasn’t able to detect in time the vile beast slumbering inside her spouse.

Author Samira Sedira is from Algeria and moved to France as a child with her family. She noted that in the real life murder case, the father of the family who was killed was Black, but racism was not cited as a possible motive in the real trial. Something she found strange and explores as a possible motive for her character. Bakary is far more affluent and successful than Constant, maybe not aligning with Constant’s world view, causing devastating consequences.

A thrumming sense of suspense is woven through the pages and it makes you take a moment to consider just how delicate human nature, especially when it is fuelled by the unconscious insidiousness of small-town mentality. A great read.

People Like Them is French-Algerian novelist, actor and playwright Samira Sedira’s English language debut and an award-winning work of psychological suspense inspired by a true story in which a couple in an insular French village have their lives upended when a family of outsiders moves in and significantly alters the neighbourhood dynamic. When the Langlois arrive in Carmac, this village lost in a mountainous valley where everyone knows and looks alike, they have the effect of an apparition. People like them, so rich, so happy, we don't hang out with them. They have an impressive chalet built, opposite Anna and Constant's modest house. Between the two couples, an ambiguous relationship is formed, made of fascination, embarrassment, soon jealousy, perhaps racism. Because Bakary Langlois is black. Nothing, however, that suggests that Constant could come to murder an entire family.

Inspired by the horrific 2003 mass homicide in Haute-Savoie, Samira Sedira makes us listen to the assassin's wife, this Anna who bears the reproach of not having guessed or prevented anything. During the trial, she tries to understand the hellish mechanics that led Constant, her lifelong love, to such murderous madness, and also explores the confinement of a small village community living behind closed doors where the other - by his condition - social status, his skin colour, his appetite for life - subjugates and disturbs until murder and mayhem ensue. This is brutal, shocking and thought-provoking—it both horrified and gripped me with its compulsively readable narrative. Dark, shocking and deeply unsettling, it explores class, race and prejudice in an incisive fashion and juxtaposes the picture-postcard provincial French village life and the ugliness of simmering racial tensions in a powerful and piercing way. Highly recommended.

I loved the narrative style of this. At first I thought it started off slow, but then I realised that every piece of information was integral to the story. I feel like the book could have been longer, filling in the gaps and taking some more creative licence with our characters' backstories, even though it is based on a true story. The characters we did see were very nuanced and it was hard to support or oppose any of them outright. I would certainly read more from this author in the future and more on this story in particular.

Thanks to NetGalley and The Publisher for this eARC in exchange for an honest review.

3.5 stars rounded down

I was gripped from the start. I really like the structure that was used to tell the story. It being based on a true story added to my curiosity. When I read this I had forgotten the blurb, so was surprised when certain characteristics of the Langlois family were revealed further drawing me in. I think the blurb might ruin that for others. If you like crime or psychological exploration this is a book for you. Short but impactful. Hopefully more of Samira Sedra books will be translated into English.

At under two hundred pages long, this novel says a great deal in a very short time. It is dark, hard hitting, provocative and disturbing. People Like Them is based on an actual event in France where a man murdered a family of five in 2003.

Constant Guilliot is standing trial for the murder of the Langlois family; that much the reader understands. What follows is a psychological examination of what pushed him to commit the crime. How much could one man suffer in his life before he loses all sense and reason?

The story is narrated by Anna, Constant's wife and it moves between the trial and the time when the Langlois family moved into their luxurious chalet next door to the Guilliots. The author explores the implications of bottled up resentment, anger, jealously, loss of dignity and complete deception. After each blow to Constant's life he becomes more and more obsessive about what he has lost and what others have gained. His family and friends are unaware of how he is spiralling towards insanity.

This is a hard hitting read which is very well written and translated. It is thought provoking in the way it addresses issues of wealth, human interaction and places in society. I recommend it very highly.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I loved People Like Them. A short and succinct novelisation of a real life murder that took place in a French village is told through the voice of the partner of the murderer, in the past and in the present day.

When the Langlois family moves into Carnac they cause a stir, not just because they are affluent but also because they are black. But what is it that finally causes Constant Guillot to kill the family of five in cold blood is what his partner Anna struggles to come to terms with.

Beautifully written and translated, this is a tale to be read in one sitting. Highly recommended. Many thanks to Netgalley and Bloomsbury/Raven for the opportunity to read and review People Like Them.

I haven’t read a book quite like People Like Them before. This translated novel is a fictionalised account of the murder of a family of five in small town France.

This very short novel includes two perspectives, chapters alternate between an account of the trial and the wife of the murderer, her section is written as if she is talking to her husband trying to remember events and work out her husband’s motivations.

The characters, main and marginal, are very real and fleshed out despite the brevity of this novella, this is a real character study rather than a fast paced crime/thriller.

Something to read if you enjoyed We Need to Talk About Kevin or Little Deaths by Emma Flint.

Carmac is a quiet French village where everyone knows everyone else & life is pretty ordinary until a new family move in. The Langlois family are the first black family to live in Carmac, but they make friends in the community easily, especially with the Guillot family who live nearby. As time goes by, however, fractures in the friendship start to appear, & when both families experience financial problems, it culminates in a violent outburst which leaves the entire village in shock.

Loosely based on a true story, the narrative is told from the view of Anna Guillot, wife of Constant. The book opens with the trial of Constant for the violent outburst (I don't want to give too much away), then it goes back to what happened when the Langlois family first arrived in the village & the events which followed. The subject itself was gripping, but it was quite short & I wonder if that contributed to the characters feeling rather remote from the reader. Although the scenes of violence were genuinely horrifying, I didn't feel as if the book fleshed out the feelings & personalities of the main characters in enough depth for me.

CW: violent scenes, child death, racial slurs.

Thanks to NetGalley & publishers, Bloomsbury Publishing UK/Raven Books, for the opportunity to read an ARC.

People Like Them is beautifully written and credit should be given not only to author Samira Sedira but to translator Lara Verngnaud for sweeping imagery which really captured the atmosphere of the small French village that the novel is set in.

The plot alternates perspective from present day in the courtroom of a homicide case to flashbacks of Anna and Constant’s life. The story is based on a true tale of a family homicide in which the media neglected to pick up on the fact that the deceased family were black and residing in a small, white French community where foreigners were treated with mistrust. Although there are elements of racism explored here, financial scams and friendship are also heavily at the forefront of the narrative which made it hard to work out who to empathise with at times!

The story is very short – I finish it in a day but it does hit hard and keeps your interest throughout. There is something about it which stops it from becoming completely engaging though, you feel as though you are kept almost at arm’s length. I’m not sure if this is because of the translation or the fact that it is based on a true story and so the author is being careful with the narrative but something about it just doesn’t invite you fully in. I think the story could have been padded out a little to help with this – one issue could be that the plot is only told from one perspective in flashback and a few more character perspectives might have helped to flesh the story out and bring it to life.

Overall, People Like Them is a beautifully written plot based on a true story – it’s just a shame the reader is kept at arm’s length throughout. Thank you to NetGalley, Bloomsbury Publishing and Raven Books for the chance to read the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

I really liked this book, and it has the benefit of being short! I don’t know if it’s right for the book group but it is a really good read. The author’s notes tell us that it is based on a true crime, the horrific homicide of a family of five. This story is told from the viewpoint of the wife, watching her husband being tried in court and trying to make sense of the events which have occurred. With nasty racist overtones, she sees her husband in a new light. There is never any doubt that he has committed the crime, it is more about looking at how newcomers to their area have disturbed the status quo with their money, their charisma, their amazing house but most of all their colour. I raced through this book, it doesn’t offer any easy solutions or answers but it is a fascinating examination of small-town life and racial and class tensions.

What drives an everyday man to commit an atrocious crime? Based on a true story, this is an taut, unsettling novella. I enjoyed the choice of perspective and clarity of the written style.

Originally published in French as Des Gens Comme Eux, People Like Them asks one basic question: how could a seemingly ordinary person commit the most atrocious of crimes. The story is a whydunnit, that explores the insidiousness of racism and jealousy.

The story opens with a rich description of the village of Carmac, within the Haute-Savoie department set in the eastern Alps of France which highlights the peace and tranquillity that can usually be found in the location.

From this serene setting we are then taken into the narrative of Anna Guillot who is reflecting upon the dreadful events that saw her husband Constant Guillot murder 5 members of the same family in cold blood. Her dialogue is written in a way that it is addressed to her husband of sixteen years as she recounts scenes from their everyday life to the court room.

Carmac was a village where the inhabitants all know each other, where they have lived generation after generation and all live in relative equality. Anna starts to recall their close friendships with neighbours and some of the prominent and colourful characters of the village including their friends François, Simon and Lucie. After sometime an area is cleared for a new chalet to be built and it’s very apparent to all the locals that this will be a far larger residence than the existing houses in the village. When the residents Bakary and Sylvia Langlois and their three children move in, they are friendly and hospitable to all, inviting the locals to parties at their large residence. Bakary is very difference in appearance to the local inhabitants as he was born in Gabon where he was adopted by a Parisian couple and brought up in the city.

Constant Guillot's low self asteem receives a boost as he befriends the highly impressive Bakary and they spend lots of time together. He enjoys having a charismatic friend who has social status. François, Simon and Lucie also get on well with the new couple. However a chain of events and differences start to see Guillot distance himself from Langlois and Simon steps in between them.

What is particularly impressive about People Like Them is that Sedira prose is so convincing. Little misunderstandings and implicit actions worsen the situation in a very believable way. For the reader it it possible to feel a level of sympathy and perhaps understanding with some of the feelings that Guillot suffers from. Yet this is a quintuple murderer who killed innocent children. This is a highly thought provoking read which does lead you to question your own thoughts and sence of perspective. We view Anna Guillot try to reconcile this.

While very different in execution, there is a similarity in theme between this novel and The Summer Of Reckoning by Marion Brunet, both are set in rural France and the culmination of resentment, envy racism and social class spark the timbers that lead to an infernal rage. Lara Vergnaud maintains the Francophone authenticity of the story which steadily builds up the tension.

At the conclusion of her book, Samira Sedira's note tells us that People Like Them is inspired by a true crime event committed in 2003 in a village in France’s Haute-Savoie region, where a man killed a family of five. Sedira observes that the media had not picked up on the point that the father of the family was black in an area of France that is largely white. Therefore her book is a fictionalised exploration of the factors which may have led to the murders.

People Like Them firmly presents the case that many murders are not born evil but are drawn to carry out such acts though their own weaknesses, their attempts to restore order and the failings of human nature.