The Cleaner

It’s not dust she’s looking for.
It’s dirt.

Esmie is meant to be invisible. Just a cleaner with a foreign accent that no one quite has time to place, and a uniform of leggings and a duster that allows her to explore the homes of the wealthy Woodlands gated community, unnoticed.

Which is exactly what she wants. Because Esmie isn’t really a cleaner.

One of the residents of Woodlands has ruined her life. And when she finds out who, she’s going to make them pay . . .

Mary Watson is from Cape Town and now lives on the west coast of Ireland. She’s worked as an art museum guide, library assistant, theatre duty manager, and an actor in children’s musicals. She has a PhD from the University of Cape Town where she taught for many years. She won the Caine Prize and the Philida Award, and her YA novels have been nominated for the Irish Book Awards and the Carnegie Medal. The Cleaner is her worldwide adult debut.

A heart-thumping thriller packed with exciting twists. ― Daily Mail

The Cleaner is a masterclass in tension. Plotted like an intricate spider’s web, I was glued to the page for the entirety. ― Jennie Godfrey, Sunday TImes bestselling author of The List of Suspicious Things

Revenge is a dish best served up spotless…The relentless attention to detail is wonderfully claustrophobic. ― Sunday Independent

A sinister page-turner…that takes readers on a psychological journey. ― Irish Sunday Times

Domestic noir at its finest. ― i Paper

A modern fairy tale – beautiful, dark, visceral, truly spellbinding. ― Sunday Times and Irish Times No. 1 bestselling author Andrea Mara

Tense from the first page, the pressure builds inexorably. A multifaceted tale of secrets, obsessions and betrayals. ― Sam Lloyd, bestselling author of The Memory Wood

The Cleaner is a richly textured thriller that veritably hums with menace. Taut, twisty and beautifully atmospheric, it pairs a gripping plot with dark, intricate themes. Class, privilege, wealth and entitlement are all put on trial in this immersive tale of betrayal and revenge. ― Kia Abdullah, author of Waterstones Thriller of the Month Those People Next Door

The Cleaner is utterly gripping, dark and gothic – a brilliant tale of jealousy, envy and betrayal with one hell of a twist. I devoured it. A tour de force and the arrival of a brilliant new voice in adult fiction. ― Edel Coffey, author of An Post Crime Fiction Book of the Year Breaking Point

In The Cleaner, Mary Watson creates an immersive, twisty, character-driven web of family secrets and lies that builds to an ending you won’t see coming. ― Fiona McPhillips, author of When We Were Silent