An enjoyable read with an original premise. Full of humour and strangeness, great fun. Will look for some more by this writer.

This book is such great fun to read. Yes it is farcical in many ways, but that is the intention. I found myself grinning from ear to ear at many things in this book from the comic asides to the situations that the characters find themselves in. The book has plenty of twists and turns and from the way it is written you need to read just one more chapter. I have previously read and enjoyed the books by this author, they all have things to think about and commentary on the modern day circumstance. Would recommend to anyone with a sense of fun.

Would you prefer to be in prison for something you didn’t do (murder), or something you did (housebreaking? Neither, you’d prefer not to be in prison at all. Al, our pseudonymous narrator, is on remand for a number of charges, but mainly murder, most of which he didn’t commit. However, he is certainly guilty of housebreaking (“interloping” Is his preferred word), although he has no intention of taking or damaging anything so perhaps his only crime is trespassing with intent. His intent is to find a place to live in comfort for a period measured by the length of time the owner is away, thereby saving on his living costs. He’s been doing this for eight years (he’s late twenties) with only occasional scares when, for example, an owner returns early and he has to make a speedy exit by a carefully planned route. He’s typing this story on a computer available to prisoners in the education area, and he notes that his troubles started when just such an event occurred, and he had to decamp to a fallback (less salubrious) property which he knows is always vacant. Except on this particular occasion he finds three other ‘interlopers’, Em, Ellie, and Jonny already ensconced. Against his better judgement he agrees to join then in interloping a large house in the Cotswolds, even though they do not follow his carefully developed rules for ensuring the operation will go off safely. Big mistake because the owner is on the premises, takes them prisoner at gunpoint and then gets himself inconveniently blown away on the doorstep. On the run from the police, who will be bound to stitch them up for the murder, their only hope is to solve the murder themselves.
This is a wittily, even facetiously, written tale, which, at heart, is a straightforward murder-mystery of the hunted protagonist type. It is fast moving, in the sense that lots of scene changes happen. Many of these are a bit unlikely, since they involve Al and Em in a series of impersonations and general conning, but the style carries one through the disbelief. The final resolution is appropriate, both in terms of the identification of the murderer and in the style in which everything is resolved.
I would like to thank NetGalley, the publishers and the author for providing me with a draft proof copy for the purpose of this review.

This was a fun read! The concept was really clever, and I loved the main character and the wit of the writing. I think the pacing was a little slow in parts, but it was still enjoyable and the mystery was satisfying to read. The light-hearted approach reminded me a little of Anthony Horowitz's books.

I liked the premise of this novel and the cheeky title. However, the pace was slow, the over use of dialogue that did not progress the story meant I did not finish.

Another book on my "up my street" list that sadly didn't live up to it's promise. I got bored and skimmed to the end. It grieves me to say this because I had high expectations that were not fullfilled. Certainly not a patch on another comedian's book I read shortly before.

I'm still thinking about what I think of the book after I've read it, which can only be a good thing right? Within the first few pages I nearly put it down as I felt I didn't like Al's voice. I thought he sounded like an older man - 50s rather than a guy in his 20s. I couldn't put my finger on why.

I carried on and once we got to the main meat of the story I perked up, though I still didn't understand why Al stuck around with the others so all the way through I was thinking, well that was a silly decision.

All in all a story that kept me reading but there were too many "but why?" moments for it to be a 5 star read.

I was intrigued by the premise of this novel, it started off really well and I enjoyed the first half, but the second half felt like it lost its way a little, going round in circles with not much happening. I ended up skimming through to just find out what happened.

A rather unusual Crime Novel which had some believable characters & a good story line ,however I sadly was unable to give it five stars because I'd end up getting frustrated when the pace slowed to that of a snail so I'd have to stop reading for a while & then start again ! #NetGalley, #GoodReads , #FB, #Amazon.co.uk, #Instagram, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/8a5b541512e66ae64954bdaab137035a5b2a89d2" width="80" height="80" alt="200 Book Reviews" title="200 Book Reviews"/>, #<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/ef856e6ce35e6d2d729539aa1808a5fb4326a415" width="80" height="80" alt="Reviews Published" title="Reviews Published"/>,#<img src="https://www.netgalley.com/badge/aa60c7e77cc330186f26ea1f647542df8af8326a" width="80" height="80" alt="Professional Reader" title="Professional Reader"/>.

The first book I have read by this author and the Title immediately draws you in and intrigued you. Humour at times but a lot of padding in my view. Very clever finish that is worth waiting for and definitely a very different book to any I have read before in this genre. Thanks to Random House and NetGalley the chance to ARC this book.

I liked the idea of this book and it started out well. Sadly, it didn’t keep my interest. It felt very slow to progress and I didn’t particularly like any of the characters which made it hard for me to engage and follow what was happening.

I think readers that enjoy a lot of dialogue between characters rather than action may get more from this one than I did.

Many thanks to #NetGalley and #RandomHouseUK for a copy of the book in exchange for an honest review.

Too long winded and overly complicated when it didn't need to be. I thought I would enjoy this book after I read the synopsis, however I got bored and frustrated!

Thank you to the author, publisher and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.

Enjoyed this. Love the concept of interloping. Wish all of the characters pasts weren’t quite so mysterious

I was really looking forward to reading this book and I’m so glad I did. It moved at a good pace and was easy to read. It had lots of little twists that helped to move the story along perfectly.

Al, Em, Elle and Jonny are an unlikely set of friends who are interlopers. Told from Al’s POV, we see how a man so used to being alone finds himself suddenly in a group of friends he just can’t get rid of. Being chased all over by Mr Bowling Ball. Wrapped up in a murder they didn’t commit. You find yourself hoping for the best. The book ended in a way I wasn’t expecting but it felt like a natural way for things to turn out.

I really liked the characters. They all had their little quirks that made them likeable. I’m hoping we may see them again in the future.

2.5

I'm sorry, but this really wasn't for me. I thought it would be a fun sort of read (going by the cover and blurb) but what I got was an overly complicated, overlong story and I'm still not sure what was going on - and no, I didn't skip any of it.

I think the story was about a guy who called himself Al (even though that wasn't his name) who broke into other people's homes and stayed there FOC ... and that was his life. Then he inadvertently does something wrong and ends up with three other people doing basically the same thing. Which is fine but they stumble across a murder and, because they've left evidence at the scene of the crime, they decide to solve the case, thus absolving themselves of the blame. The rest of the book is a very complicated explanation of why the murder happened and who did it.

So I know it wasn't just me that found it hard to follow because there's at least three separate occasions where one of the characters summarises the plot "so far". I think that apart from getting a bit of a headache the other bit I didn't understand was why the computer expert (one of the three other housebreakers) didn't just hack into the Police database and delete all the incriminating information? Maybe it was explained and I simply didn't understand.

I'm notorious at not guessing whodunnit but in this book I didn't really understand anything. My fault. Just not the book for me.

Thankyou to Netgalley and Random House, Cornerstone for the advance review copy.

This started off promisingly. A guy who ‘lodges’ (ie; breaks in and lives) in luxury houses as a permanent lifestyle choice, thinks of himself as a caretaker, and does this very well in his opinion. It had to go wrong sooner or later right? And yes it does. Introducing three other ‘interlopers’ to the story and a murder of a house owner they weren’t expecting home. It trips along nicely in the first half and is quite amusing in places. Cringily so but amusing.

But then it grinds to a halt. The characters are just going around in circles. Lengthy, overly drawn out discussions ensue with them trying to work out what happened to cause the murder which happened right in front of them. No baddies appears for ages trying to get them, and quite frankly I lost interest. Skipping through the last section to roughly work out what happened, and it was predictable. Even the ending. Of course he got the girl. Of course they escaped jail. Even the perpetrator wasn’t a surprise at all. There, I’ve saved a whole heap of time for you.

A shame, as it had promise. Just too much padding and no shocking surprises.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.

A Beginner’s Guide to Breaking and Entering is a great read, easy to get into and full of interesting characters.

Al is an interloper - a person who breaks into people’s houses while they are away, stays there and then leaves before they come home. He’s never been caught before but this time he meets a group of 3 people at one of his regular haunts and they join up together, slightly against his better judgment.

What ensues is quite often funny, mysterious and full of drama, as the foursome end up suspects in a murder. Instead of going to ground, they decide to try and solve Davy’s murder.

While I did hugely enjoy reading this book, I have a few unanswered questions still. What is Al’s real name? Why is he an interloper? Did they stick together as a 4 in the end?

In my country we have a lot of Als, Ella's and others who somehow fell through the cracks of the housing market and trying to find a roof above their head. Part of this group is like Al - he is always very careful not to attract attention and he leaves the homes he temporarily lives spotlessly clean. Part of this group is completely different - they break in by vandalizing the home and leave it only after they completely wrecked it and the police had to come to get them out.
Of course, it's no fun to write a book about someone in the latter group! But this book about Al and his reluctant group of friends is very funny at times although slightly ridiculous.
Things go from good to wonderful and from bad to worse in a short period of time and at one point it looks like there will be no 'happy ending'. The fun thing is, that the whole story end very differently from what I thought it would, and it tied the whole story nicely up.
Not a spectacular tale, but engaging and entertaining with some good characters.

Thanks to Random House and Netgalley for this review copy.

3.5 stars rounded up.
Well this was all thing convoluted and interconnected with a healthy side order of, well, bonkers! But delightfully so...
We start with a Al, not his real name, who lives his life by staying in other peoples' houses. Mostly whilst they are away on holiday but he is also not adverse to making the most of an unoccupied second home, or property under probate. He is currently in prison, quite how he gets there, all will be revealed... Fast rewind to the beginning of how he got there, we find him escaping from a situation. A situation that will pretty much set up the run of bad luck he encounters during the rest of this book. After fleeing by the skin of his teeth from said situation, he decides to fall back on an old favourite property, only to find it already, shock horror, occupied... But... new "friends" and all that jazz, and so happens his second big mistake of the book, they all team up. But the house they then go to "visit" gives them more than they expected... it's not only occupied, but said occupant is then killed...
And so begins the aforementioned bonkers cat and mouse game which delivers some scary and funny escapades, skirting plausibility, but just managing to say on the right side of credible...
The plot is a little convoluted and occasionally went astray. That said, the characters did a good job of recapping every so often which was helpful, if a little annoying after a while. That said, I can forgive the repetition and then twisty turny path it all followed as, to be honest, it was quite a lot of fun.
I do have some reservations about Al's career choices. Some of the decisions he made along the way didn't really ring true with either his personality or what had come before. I also found the ending of the book to be quite weak in comparison with what had gone before. Which left me a little bit wanting rather than wholly satisfied. I also have questions...!
All in all, a solid read that did keep me entertained for the duration. For me though, not as strong as his previous books - The Sanctuary, and The Last Day - which I do recommend you read.
My thanks go to the Publisher and Netgalley for the chance to read this book.

Such a fun read - some great moments of humour in amongst the darker parts of the plot. A fresh original premise and a story told with a real flair and distinctive voice. One of my fave reads so far for 2024.