The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill

By: C.S. Robertson

Narrated by: Lauren Lyle

Length: 9 hrs and 23 mins

Publisher's summary

Some people die alone and someone has to clean what's left behind - houses, bodies, memories and old, dark secrets.

Grace McGill is an insular, friendless woman, living in Glasgow in her 30s. She has her beloved cat, and she has her own business - deep cleaning the houses of Undiscovereds. People who die alone and stay that way until they are found weeks, sometimes months, later.

While working in the home of a man named Tommy Agnew, her suspicions are aroused by a hidden photograph and a stack of newspapers, all from the same date over many, many years.

Grace can't get the mysterious life and sad death of Tommy Agnew out of her head, and she soon begins an investigation that could cost her her life. The past has stayed buried for many years already, but Grace has never been one to brush things under the carpet....

A stand-out novel with a unique narrative voice and an unguessable mystery. You are guaranteed to remember Grace McGill.

©2022 C.S. Robertson (P)2022 Hodder & Stoughton Limited

Critic reviews

"A dark, disturbing and highly original thriller. You'll love Grace McGill." (Mark Billingham)

"Dark, twisted and compelling, you won't want Grace to clean your house...." (C.L. Taylor)

Very Original, Unique and Clever

This book is so original and refreshing! It is in a category of its own and well researched in the forensic science area. The main character is a compassionate female ’cleaner’ of homes in which a person has died alone, usually elderly, and their demise is not discovered for weeks or months. She is meticulous and thoughtful. She forms a connection to the departed imagining their lives through objects or photographs left behind. The work is intense physically and emotionally so as a catharsis she recreates little dioramas of the rooms where their lives came to an end. The narrator is excellent! The young girl who disappeared years ago still remains a mystery but information begins to emerge….

Bad narrator, cats and grossness

Rarely is there a narrator that makes a book almost unbearable, this one does. It's almost completely monotone. Hard to differentiate between characters and almost put me to sleep.

Then, way too much about the cat. It's borderline creepy in some parts.

I have a weak stomach, doesn't go well with how in depth they go into death smells and rotting bodies, maggots and biologist beings. More than a little much. I realized that would be a part of it. Didn't think it would be that much. She has no friends or social life. So it's the nasty death goo, the cat and the alcoholic father she cleans for every day for some reason.