Other editions of book Trick or Treat?

In this “perfect, black little tale” from the author of Honour Thy Father, a feud between neighbors in an English town escalates to terrifying consequence (The Observer). In northern England, along a block of row houses, lives the widow Nell. Lately, she’s had a difficult time adjusting to her new lodger—her son Rodney. An ex-con imprisoned for something no one likes to talk about, Rodney has moved back into his old bedroom. He is his mother’s pride and shame. Two doors down from Nell is Olive. Obese, childless, near senile, and given to violent mood swings, Olive is comforted by her pets, and coddled by a patient lover. Once, Olive was beautiful. Once, Olive was Nell’s best friend. But for more than fifty years now, they’ve been separated by a paralyzing hatred and rivalry. Then, one night, the eight-year-old son of a new neighbor invites them both to a Guy Fawkes Day bonfire in his backyard. Amid the smoldering embers of fall leaves, a spark of another kind is ignited. Their violent rage is set to explode, a buried past will be revealed, and no one on their quiet little block is ever going to feel safe again. In this “absorbing” (Los Angeles Times) novel from the Somerset Maugham Award winner, Glaister expertly reveals her “uncomfortable knack of putting her finger on things we fear most” (The Independent on Sunday). “A cool, sure, bright entertainment.” —Kirkus Reviews “Before Gillian Flynn, there was Lesley Glaister.” —Harper’s Bazaar

All Nell's life, Olive has lived next door but one. And all her life, Nell has hated her. Even at school she had sparkled indecently, unladylike, turning heads. But that was before she gave in to gravity. Oh, she might have been a beauty once, Olive Owens, but now she is a fright - a fat old spinster, childless, senile, nursed by the lackey she calls a lodger. Nell has a son, her pleasure and her shame, though now she lives alone. She watched her husband die in the dressing-table mirror, and she talks to him still, at times has to slip him over to shut him up. Nell is sharp, in all the places Olive is round. When Wolfe moves into the house in between them, their quiet street is transformed. A lonely, spirited, eight-year-old boy, he knocks on their doors at Halloween and invites them to his bonfire party. As the ashes smoulder and the fireworks flare, he finds himself in the middle of an ancient conflict, grudges bared, and burning with a fury he could never have imagined.