Make Me Clean – Tina Baker | Publication Day Book Review | #MakeMeClean | @TinaBakerBooks @ViperBooks

She will leave your surfaces sparkling.
But she may well leave you dead…

Maria is a good woman and a good cleaner. She cleans for Elsie, the funny old bird who’s losing her marbles, with the terrible husband. She cleans for Brian, the sweet man with the terrible boss. She cleans for the mysterious Mr Balogan, with the terrible neighbours.

If you’re thinking of hiring her, you should probably know that Maria might have killed the terrible husband, the terrible boss and the terrible neighbours. She may also have murdered the man she loved…

She didn’t set out to kill anyone, of course, but her clients have hired her to clean up their lives, and she takes her job seriously – not to mention how much happier they all are now. The trouble is, murder can’t be washed out. You can only sweep it under the carpet, and pray no one looks too closely…

Darkly funny and completely gripping from the first page to the last, Make Me Clean is one thriller you won’t be able to scrub from your mind. Perfect for fans of Harriet Tyce, Fiona Cummins and My Sister the Serial Killer.

MY THOUGHTS

My thanks to Angie of Viper for the tour invitation and paperback copy to review. Make Me Clean is published today by Viper Books in ebook, audio and Hardback format – congratulations Tina! 🎉🍾🧽

Maria doesn’t have much of a life. Home is a pokey bedsit which she returns to as little as possible but there is one thing she has learned to be extremely good at. Cleaning. And more specifically, cleaning up blood. Maria has quite a history – a bit of a difficult one but she is a survivor, even if some people who come across her are not as fortunate!

I wasn’t quite sure what the deal was with Maria at first, but despite the rising body count, I did warm to her, she had a vulnerability that I couldn’t help but be affected by. She goes the extra mile for certain clients and her natural affection for elderly Elsie for whom she cleaned and acted as a part time carer was extremely touching (Elsie had dementia and her behaviour could be rather unpredictable). I wasn’t quite so keen on Elsie’s nephew Del, who had one eye on Elsie’s house whilst professing that he was only looking out for Elsie’s interests. Maria’s other customers were a real mix of characters and it was interesting watching to see which way events would go when inevitably things went a bit too far.

I really enjoyed Make Me Clean with its short addictive chapters. It’s so intriguing, has an abundance of drama and of course there is death but there is also a human element with excellent characterisation. Characters like Maria are fleshed out with a detailed backstory and you get a real feel for what makes them tick. Tina Baker writes with humour to counterbalance some of the darker storyline as well as giving the reader a gripping story. Definitely recommended.

Tina Baker was brought up in a caravan after her mother, a fairground traveller, fell pregnant by a window cleaner. After leaving the bright lights of Coalville, she came to London and worked as a journalist and broadcaster for thirty years and is probably best known as a television critic for the BBC and GMTV, and for winning Celebrity Fit Club. Her debut novel, Call Me Mummy, was a #1 Kindle bestseller, and featured on Lorraine. Her second novel, Nasty Little Cuts, was published in 2022.

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