The Psychopath Next Door Summary: Fiona’s Revenge List

Last Updated: October 16, 2026

Table of Contents

TL;DR: A New Neighbour on Snowdon Close

Snowdon Close is a brand-new housing estate in South Croydon, where every street is named after a mountain and every kitchen is spotless.

Ethan Dove moves there with his wife Emma and their two children, hoping the change of address will repair a marriage still bruised by Emma’s emotional affair.

Then Fiona Smith takes the house next door.

In The Psychopath Next Door, Mark Edwards follows what happens when a charismatic stranger builds a quiet, deliberate bond with Ethan’s twelve-year-old daughter, Rose — and when the family’s ordinary suburban worries turn into something far darker.

The setup: A fresh-start family, a new-build estate, and a neighbour who arrives with a prison record and a list of three names.
The hook: Fiona does not target the adults first. She targets the child.
The escalation: A sabotaged footpath, a stolen EpiPen, a peanut-laced cookie, a shove down a cellar staircase, and a brass candlestick.
The turn: Rose is not a victim being manipulated. She is a willing student — and eventually a more dangerous one than her teacher.
Core themes: psychopathy and the “dark triad,” parental blindness, revenge, the grooming of evil, and the fragility of suburban domesticity.
Tone: Tense, claustrophobic, and fast-moving, told in alternating first-person and third-person chapters.

Book Details at a Glance

Genre & Subgenre: Psychological Thriller / Domestic Noir / Crime Fiction
Core Narrative Tropes: The psychopath next door, the sociopathic child, mentorship in crime, suburban secrets, a revenge list, domestic infidelity
Tone & Atmosphere: Unsettling, sinister, suspenseful, dark, and claustrophobic
Primary Conflict: Ethan Dove’s attempt to hold his family together against Fiona Smith’s infiltration of it — and against what his own daughter is becoming
Pacing Style: Fast-paced and escalating, alternating between Ethan’s first-person narration and third-person chapters following Fiona and Lucy
ISBN: 978-1662508974 (ISBN-10: 1662508972)
Pages: 349
Book Structure: A prologue, three parts, an epilogue, plus acknowledgements and author notes — 42 numbered chapters in total

The Psychopath Next Door Summary Mark Edwards (2)

The Psychopath Next Door Summary: Full Story (Spoilers)

Spoiler warning: the following section describes the plot, major deaths, and the ending of the novel.

In September 2021, Fiona Smith walks out of Franklin Grange Prison with money left to her by her dead partner, Maisie. She has no family waiting and no friends.

What she does have is a list of three people she blames for her arrest, and a whispered promise to get close to each of them before she strikes.

Two years later, Ethan Dove is settling into 27 Snowdon Close with Emma, fifteen-year-old Dylan, and twelve-year-old Rose. Fiona moves in at number 29.

She wins the family over quickly, stepping in when two local teenagers, Albie and Eric, harass Rose. Behind the friendly façade, Fiona is watching Rose closely.

During a babysitting night, Fiona shows Rose the horror film M3GAN and notices the girl calmly stamping on a doll. She recognises something familiar: an absence of empathy.

Fiona’s first act in the neighbourhood is to wedge a strip of wood studded with nails into a crack on the footpath. Albie rides his dirt bike over it, blows a tyre, and crashes headfirst into a tree.

He survives with severe brain damage. Fiona removes the trap before anyone arrives, leaving his father Tommy convinced someone meant to hurt his son.

Fiona then draws Rose into a game she calls spycraft. Their first target is Max Gallup, the lawyer who advised Fiona and Maisie to plead guilty in 2019.

Rose charms her way into Max’s house and memorises his alarm code. Fiona uses it to enter at night and steal his EpiPen.

The next day, Rose hands Max cookies laced with peanut flour in Brockwell Park. He dies of anaphylactic shock on the grass.

Ethan notices that Rose shows no shock or grief at having witnessed a man die. Fiona tells Rose to keep quiet about the cookies, warning that they would both be charged with murder.

Fiona visits her old cellmate, convicted serial killer Lucy Newton, at Franklin Grange. Lucy wants her to punish Jamie and Kirsty Knight, but Fiona stays focused on her own list.

Target two is Patrick Grant, an eighty-year-old retired crime journalist in Wadhurst, Sussex. He exposed the thallium poisoning plot Fiona and Maisie ran against the wealthy widow Dinah Uxbridge.

Fiona takes Rose to Wadhurst, posing as “Bianca” with Rose playing her daughter. They befriend Patrick over chess in a pub garden and follow him home.

Patrick recognises Fiona, pulls an old revolver, and orders her down into the cellar. Rose charges at him from behind and shoves him down the stairs, breaking his neck.

Back on Snowdon Close, Ethan sees Emma embracing Mike, the neighbour from her emotional affair, and assumes his marriage is finished. He seeks comfort from Fiona, and they embrace in her kitchen, where Tommy sees them.

Tommy later confronts Fiona about her identity and Albie’s crash. She drugs his beer, undresses him, photographs him, and blackmails him into silence.

Meanwhile, Ethan and Emma talk honestly and begin to repair things. On a family log-cabin holiday, Rose verbally torments eleven-year-old Henry Gallagher during laser tag until he panics and falls off a ramp.

Ethan catches the flicker of pleasure in his daughter’s eyes. Their neighbour, seventy-two-year-old Iris Green, finally places Fiona from old news coverage of the Uxbridge poisoning case.

Before Iris can warn anyone, Fiona forces her way into the house and beats her to death with a brass candlestick. Rose watches without expression as The Psychopath Next Door moves into its final act.

The 2019 backstory explains the third name on the list. Fleeing police after the poisoning scheme collapsed, Fiona and Maisie were blocked at a traffic light by a stalled Land Rover.

The delay let the police reach them. The Land Rover belonged to Ethan Dove, and Emma was driving it. Maisie later killed herself in prison.

After Iris’s body is found, Dylan tells Ethan he saw Fiona and Rose go into her house that night. Dylan also reveals that his girlfriend Keira, whose mother is a child psychologist, has identified Rose’s “dark triad” traits.

Ethan and Dylan search Fiona’s house and find a DSM-5 inscribed to her by Maisie. A hidden phone rings — it is Lucy Newton calling from prison.

Lucy tells Ethan that Fiona’s real surname is Woodfield, that Ethan is on her list, and that he should look for Jamie and Kirsty Knight in Finsbury Park.

Ethan and Dylan drive there and confirm Lucy’s identity as a convicted serial killer. Calling back, Ethan learns that Fiona is fixated on the abandoned Ravenhill Psychiatric Hospital.

Fiona drives Emma and Rose to Ravenhill. She calls the derelict building home and lays out her plan: kill Emma, marry Ethan, and train Rose as her apprentice and shield.

When Emma tries to take Rose and leave, Fiona pulls a flick-knife and holds it to the girl’s throat. Rose bites her wrist and breaks free.

Emma reaches for her daughter. Rose rejects her outright, saying she likes owning people and likes being the way she is.

Rose snatches the knife from Fiona’s hand and slashes her mother’s throat. Emma collapses against the wall and bleeds to death.

Fiona, shaken, calls Rose rubbish and tries to run. Rose tells her she is better off without her and stabs her repeatedly in the back, killing her.

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Ethan arrives to find Emma and Fiona dead and Rose covered in blood. Rose claims Fiona killed Emma and that Emma stabbed Fiona.

Dylan runs in, sees the scene, and screams that Rose is a psychopathic killer. Ethan asks Rose whether Fiona killed Iris — and her lie confirms her guilt to him.

Ethan holds his daughter for the police. Rose drops the innocent act, scratches his face, grabs the knife, and threatens to kill him.

He disarms her and drags her outside. Lying in the dirt as officers close in, she smiles and whispers that he should have killed her.

In the epilogue, Lucy Newton reads newspaper coverage of thirteen-year-old Rose Dove’s trial for the murders of Fiona Woodfield and Emma Dove. Lucy recognises a fellow predator and begins planning her transfer to the prison where Rose will be held.

Characters in This Book

Character	Role
Ethan Dove	Protagonist and primary narrator; a vinyl record shop owner, husband to Emma, and father to Dylan and Rose.
Fiona Smith / Fiona Woodfield	Primary antagonist; a psychopath released from Franklin Grange Prison who moves in next door and works through a revenge list.
Rose Dove	Twelve-year-old daughter of Ethan and Emma who becomes Fiona’s accomplice and commits multiple murders.
Emma Dove	Ethan’s wife and mother to Dylan and Rose; killed by Rose at Ravenhill Asylum.
Dylan Dove	Fifteen-year-old son of Ethan and Emma who first notices Fiona’s blank expressions and Rose’s sociopathy.
Maisie Smith	Fiona’s late partner and mentor in thallium poisoning who killed herself in prison in 2019.
Lucy Newton	Convicted serial killer and Fiona’s former cellmate, later intent on mentoring Rose.
Max Gallup	Target one; the lawyer who advised Fiona and Maisie to plead guilty, killed by peanut-laced cookies.
Patrick Grant	Target two; a retired crime journalist in Wadhurst who exposed the Uxbridge poisoning.
Iris Green	Neighbour at number 31 who recognises Fiona from 2019 news coverage and is beaten to death.
Tommy	Father of Albie and Eric at number 36; drugged and blackmailed by Fiona.
Albie and Eric	Teenage brothers who harass the Doves; Albie is left with brain damage after the dirt bike crash.
Dinah Uxbridge	Wealthy widow targeted by Fiona and Maisie’s thallium poisoning scheme in 2019.
Jamie and Kirsty Knight	Targets of Lucy Newton living in Finsbury Park; they help confirm Lucy’s identity to Ethan.
Angela and Keira Gallagher	Child psychologist and her daughter, who identifies Rose’s “dark triad” traits.