Very weird, very wonderful: a damaged, damaging, unreliable narrator, strangely endearing

This is an edgily satisfying, very uncomfortable read, with a central character whom ‘in real life’ one would probably want to avoid – she is hardly the most socially skilful, appealing person to encounter. The clearly misnamed ‘Grace’ who seems to have none of the qualities, physical, emotional, spiritual which might go along with expectations of the qualities association with ‘Grace’, is, oddly, someone whom, on reflection, after finishing the book, had this reader wryly smiling. Grace may not be in any obvious way full-of-Grace – and yet, and yet….

Grace McGill is uncomfortable in social situations, something of a loner. It might be tempting to think that she is neurodiverse, somewhere ‘on the spectrum’ perhaps. But although she may be uncomfortable with relationship, with emotional intimacy, this is not because she is uncaring. In fact, the reverse. She feels the suffering of the lonely, the terrified, the bullied and the victims far, far to intensely.

This has brought her into an odd profession. She is a cleaner – but not of the houses of the living. She is a forensic cleaner. She gets called in, after the police, the emergency services, the investigations of possible crimes have all been, gone, and done their jobs, to those premises where some poor soul has died alone, undiscovered, unnoticed as missing, till decomposition over weeks or months creates complaints from neighbours, responsive to rank and festering odours. It is then Grace will be brought in, clad in biohazard gear, to render premises habitable again.

She has, as might be expected, dark secrets in her past, a traumatic childhood, which has left her too scared to allow intimacy and trust with others.

She is also somewhat – more than a little – obsessive. She knows she is damaged, and is drawn to others who are also deeply fearful, deeply lonely.

And she is not always the most honest of people. Not even to herself. And not to us, either.

In this case, information which we, the readers, piece together, shocking surprises we are given, don’t feel like the author playing crass games with the reader, but there are places in Grace’s memory and past which SHE cannot bear to view.

The reader is unlikely to LIKE Grace, but she excites our care and compassion – and even, our understanding.

A most strange ‘psychological thriller of the literary kind. One which did not seem contrived. I will certainly want to read more by this author, and am delighted to have had the privilege of discovering such an unusual read by a first time author, thanks to the publisher via NetGalley

From the synopsis-“When people die alone and undiscovered, someone has to clean up what’s left behind-whether it’s clutter, bodily remains….or dark secrets.”

Enter Grace McGill, from Last Wish Cleaning.

She has been cleaning death scenes for eight years, and as part of the process, she photographs the rooms in the deceased’s homes, in case relatives want to see them. She soon realizes that the pictures don’t reflect the true sadness of those who were left behind, so she begins to make dioramas of the crimes-macabre miniatures of the rooms she cleans.

She calls the scenes “crimes” because isn’t that what is it? When nobody notices that a person is gone? When nobody has checked to see if a person you haven’t seen for awhile is okay or in need of help? (The longest was a woman dead for 5 years)

Grace realizes that people end up lonely for many reasons. “Some choose it, some deserve it, but most fall into it without even noticing…Lonely lives often end in Lonely Deaths.”

BUT- Grace notices.

Sometimes she even takes a memento so the person will at least be remembered by her.
Sometimes she becomes obsessed with the secrets she learns about, and can’t share with another living creature except for George, a stray cat she rescued-so handsome she named him after Clooney.

I enjoyed meeting Grace.

She is a “special” character whose thoughts are often AT ODDS with her words and actions, making spending time in her mind, a fun place to be.

The book definitely moves in an unexpected direction (especially just past the halfway point) and kept me in suspense. It is definitely one of the most UNIQUE stories, I have read all year.

I was caught off guard by the ending-though if you think about it-it was definitely fitting.

Thank You to Hodder and Stoughton for the gifted copy-provided through NetGalley. It was my pleasure to offer a candid review!

Available January 20, 2022.

We’ve all seen or read the sad stories about a body going undiscovered for months. Maybe the person had no living family. Maybe nobody cared about them anymore. You’ve probably wondered what it would be like to be the one to discover the body. The smells, the decomposition...But have you ever wondered who cleans up after that body?

Grace McGill will tell you. She’s a death cleaner, and she’s a very thorough one at that. She also doesn’t shy away from going into the details about what it takes to clean and disinfect an area where human remains were found weeks/months after death. Clearing up bodily fluids, removing detached fat. You get the gist.

There’s a pattern that emerges as Grace goes from house to house, and she wonders why the police aren’t looking into it. A mystery surfaces, and Grace is determined to connect all the dots.

That’s all I’ll say about the plot. This is a story that definitely went in a different direction than I anticipated. I was intrigued pretty early on, and that only increased as the story progressed. Grace is such an interesting character - awkward, loner. Her narrative can be dark and bleak, and yet morbidly humorous. She doesn’t like attention, but she’s a straight shooter. The yin and yang is very compelling.

Overall, this is an original and engrossing mystery (not extremely dark, not a cozy) that gets better as it progresses, leading to a resolution I wasn’t anticipating. It’s also fast-paced and quick to read. I recommend it if you're looking for something a bit different, slightly macabre, and quirky.

I’m glad I had Jayme along for the ride. We really enjoyed discussing our theories along the way. It definitely made for some enlightening conversation. Make sure to check out her phenomenal review, and you can see if we ended up on the same side of the fence.

Thank you to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley UK for an ARC in exchange for an honest review. Expected Publication Date: 1/20/22.

Review also posted at: https://bonkersforthebooks.wordpress.com

A quite intriguing and different take on the Murder Mystery, in this slow burning and easy to read story by CS Robertson,

The story follows Grace MaGill, a deep cleaner who comes in after a body has been found and left to decompose.

This take is deeply set in a world of loneliness and how it feels to be alone, and exactly what that drives you to, and how it so deeply affects us as the very social beings we are.

With a staggering and well concealed twist around half way through, the pace does pick up, and the finale that is brought to a head is a satisfying if sad end, this book will not make you laugh, nor smile. It almost left me cold.

The story is told in the first person from Grace’s perspective. Although she lives alone she’s at the beck and call of her drunken abusive father. She’s very shy and finds it difficult to talk to people. This makes the first part of the book quite slowly paced and introspective. That’s not a bad thing, the writing remains very readable, but it did lull me into thinking this might all be as steadily paced. But just over halfway through the whole book takes an unexpected turn which really shook things up.

I raced through this twisty and dark story in one sitting! Grace McGill is a death cleaner. She cleans up after those people who die alone. Along with their bodily remains she cleans up their clutter and secrets...

One old man lies undetected for months. At his funeral she discovers he has old friends. She wonders why they hadn't been checking up on him when he was alive.

Grace also lives alone with her cat and visits her ungrateful and abusive father through duty, not love. She misses her mother so much.

Something makes her delve deeper into the past and tries to find out what secret binds the men together after finding the items in Tommy's flat, something's not right and she's determined to get to the bottom of it at whatever the cost.

It's hugely compelling although very dark and disturbing. I loved it!

Grace McGill is a 'death cleaner', after a corpse has been removed from a house Grace goes in and deeps cleans. Grace has a niche in cleaning up the 'undiscovered' which have sometimes been decaying for weeks or months.

Aside from her unusual occupation, Grace is a unique character, painfully shy, obsessive and more comfortable around death than she is around most living people.

Some photos and a collection of newspapers found at one of her clean up jobs triggers an obsession to try and solve a mystery.

This is a very dark book, even before the mystery / thriller unfolds. I found Grace's character fully believable and was compelled to read her story.

The plot starts as a creeper and a thinker, as Grace's investigation deepens it twists and loops wildly. There is real tension and threat and we really get into Grace's head, "What do you think you know, and how do you know it?" is a question she gets asked (and asks herself) more than once.

There is a real depth, with lots of introspection and reflection on loneliness and social isolation.

This is a book that really hooks, and lingers after finishing, the more I think about it, the better this book is. The characters, atmosphere, plotting, pace and tension are all absolutely spot on and hugely impressive.

I only discovered after reading that this is from the same author as Random and Murderabilia, I wasn't surprised by this, as the quality is obvious, and I love this foray into a more psychological mystery.

In my opinion this book is destined to become a modern dark psychological crime classic.

Thanks to Netgalley and Hodden & Stoughton

I have to say that in all my years of reading and the thousands of books that I've read, I have never read s book like this. I was even doing a child's trick of reading under the covers last night so as not to disturb my hubby. It's amazing, gripping and very well written.

A clever book, loved it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher I read a free advance review copy of the book. This review is voluntary, honest and my own opinion.

An interesting premise turned into a compelling and troubling story. The novel centres around the strange and quirky character of Grace McGill, a cleaner who specialises in cleaning up particularly unpleasant death scenes. She initially comes across as an eccentric loner but as the story develops we see an obsessive and more sinister side to her character as she tries to clear up mysteries about the people she cleans up after. A highly original and readable book.

Impressive story, that makes it hard to write a review that is worthy of this book that has a proper slowness to it. Like the way the architecture is mentioned from time to time. Despite it having a quiet atmosphere (or is it Grace somehow living a quiet life?) this book is a page-turner indeed. With quite a few surprises.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for a copy of the book.

C.S. Robertson’s novels straddles the suspense, thriller, and police procedural categories and features another marginalised, slightly awkward, often lonely character in the vein of ‘Eleanor Oliphant’, ‘The Girl on the Train’ or ‘The Woman in the Window’. Robertson’s fictional creation is called Grace McGill, a Glaswegian whose job it is to clean the houses of the deceased. Working to her own moral code, Grace takes great care to preserve the cherished belongings of those who passed away, and to keep their names alive. This leads her to attend the funeral of Tommy Agnew as one of only three mourners, who she discovers harbour a secret related to the disappearance of a girl in the 1960s. Grace’s personal investigation of this disapparance lead her to the Scottish island of Bute, and the reader to discover more about Grace’s earlier life. I thought this was a fascinating, often dark read, and I am grateful to NetGalley and to the publishers for giving me access to a free ARC that allowed me to read this thriller and to provide this unbiased ARC.

A very enjoyable read with a unique storyline. I actually found the plot of the story and the life of Grace to be really sad. All of the characters are believable and the book is well paced.

I really enjoyed this book for a number of reasons.

I thought the way of living in the closes of Scotland was very evocotive of visiting relatives. As my husbands family comens from Rothesay the sections written on the Island were particularly interesting and the ability to follow the characters footsteps around the island was a nice bonus.

As far as the story goes I caught "on" about two -thirds of the way through and thought that the twist was well thought out although not shocking, It did give pause to how the trauma one experiences in childhood can skew the way a person potentially behaves as an adult.

I found the job role of the main character fascinating and in a dark way enjoyed some of the more unsavoury workings.

Overall a great, easy read that has a bit more of a gutsy storyline.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review

I just reviewed The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill by C.S. Robertson. #TheUndiscoveredDeathsofGraceMcGill #NetGalley

A strong, intriguing storyline together with the instantly engaging character of Grace swept me along effortlessly right from the start. I certainly didn't see the macabre twist until it jumped right out at me and to be totally honest it knocked my overall feelings about the book somewhat off kilter. Clever but unsettling in a bizarre kind of way. Should be a huge hit as it's certainly left a lasting impression.

Grace McGill is a death cleaner, going into houses where the inhabitant has died often weeks before, and cleaning what is left after their body is removed. She is thorough and very good at what she does, often giving the dead people the attention and respect that they may have missed as they passed. She is passionate about people being abandoned by those who are meant to love or care for them, and sees the results of what happens when people are left dead and unmoved for too long. Her job takes her to an old man's house where his belongings include hoards of newspapers; Grace feels there is a story to be uncovered and slowly starts to find out more about the man and his past. There is also the storyline of Grace's own history and family story, with her alcoholic father calling on her and verbally abusing her without a second thought.

I was gripped by the story and the way events unfolded was well plotted and well told. It was a story that I hadnt seen before, and it was very well written.

Grace McGill has an unusual job and it’s not for the faint hearted. She is a death cleaner. She cleans the blood and bodily fluids left behind after someone has died but lay undiscovered for a long period of time. She is very thorough in her duties. After cleaning after two bodies which she finds out that there is a link between them she discovers a mystery of a girl disappearing on the island of Bute dating back to 1964. She starts investigating not for herself but the people that are out there still wondering where the girls gone. But as she discovers who the perpetrators are, she gets in all sorts of trouble and her own life is exposed.
Thanks Hodder and Stoughton for a copy The undiscovered deaths of Grace McGill. It has a interesting story line and at first I was drawn to the protagonist. Grace McGill is a quirky character and reminded me a bit of Eleanor Oliphant a bit. But halfway through her character changed and she wasn’t the likeable character that I first thought. It had an interesting storyline but got a bit confused at the end. 4 stars from me.

This is an unusual murder mystery, I’ve never read a book like it before. Grace is an engaging character, self employed to deep clean the homes of people who die and lay undiscovered for a long time. Half way through the tale turns a turn to the dark side, and the plot thickens. I almost gave up on the book because I didn’t like the story line with Grace’s relationship with her father. It made uncomfortable reading, but I think it was, sadly, realistic. Not an uplifting book, but interesting and gripping right to the end.

Jumped at the chance to read this,being fascinated by the characters job.
However it never really gripped me.
I found the character of Grace hard to get any grip on.

Enjoyable,but didn't live up to my expectations having read the reviews.

Probably just me.

Grace McGill has the worst job imaginable, she cleans up houses after their occupants have lain dead for months... Socially isolated and obsessed with detail, she pays homage to each scene by crafting miniature dioramas. She becomes fixated with a missing girl from the seventies and tracks down the key suspects leading to all manner of difficulties for her. Her secret life is exposed and her attempts to seek redemption with the living is not appreciated. Reminiscent of Eleanor Rigby and to an extent, Exit by Belinda Bauer. Grace is a fascinating if somewhat unsympathetic character with her own sense of moral justice.

Ideal for fans of the very slow burn that spirals off in an unexpected direction. Lots of descriptions of forensic clean-ups after undiscovered deaths. This will be a good read for anyone looking for an unusual mystery with an unusual sleuth. The same but very different.. With thanks to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review an advance copy.