This was really a unique & different book & I was a little unsure at the start but I couldn’t stop reading it.
A very dark & weird story set in Glasgow it was nothing like I have read before.
Grace McGill is not your average cleaner as she cleans properties where people have been found dead & decomposing for many weeks or months.
As you can imagine not pleasant & the author goes in to great detail.
She becomes embroiled in a mystery surrounding some of the deaths & the story takes a whole new direction.
It is quite a morbid story but so clever with all the twists & turns as the story progresses.
I got really engrossed as you really have to pay attention to every detail.
I would never have guessed how this book was going to turn out.
It is writing on a whole new level.
Such a compelling read & very different.

3.5 stars
This is a good read.
Grace has an unusual job - she cleans the homes of people who have died and removes all trace that there was a death in the property.
She does her job with respect to the deceased and spends time collecting belongings to give to their relatives.
At one property she notices that a daisy has been left on the pillow and puts it in a bag to preserve it. A few weeks later she finds another daisy at another property and knows this is suspicious.
The Police don’t want to know so Grace sets out to look into this herself.
From talking to people at funerals Grace realises that there is a link to a missing woman 50 years ago.
This is a good read but not quite the gripping thriller I was expecting.
Thanks to Hodder & Stoughton and NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.

This was very interesting read, definitely a book that you really need to concentrate on whilst reading. I love it when you learn something whilst reading a book and this one did it for me.

Really enjoyed it and had to read in one session as it was comicated.

I was given an advance copy by the publishers and netgalley but the review is entirely my own

A brilliant story. Probably my favourite this year and as a fellow Glasweigen, the author is spot on. Brilliant weird and dark story set in the British weird and dark city of Glasgow. Xx

This was quite a strange book in many ways but very well written. This was another new author for me which I’m always pleased to discover. This book kept me entertained and interested all the way through.. A great story. My thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for giving me the opportunity to read this book in return for an honest review.

I found this a very unusual story.
The main character has a job cleaning up after a death has been discovered. She also has a history which is revealed well into the book.
I was very interested to find out what happened but I found it difficult to engage with this character. I was shocked by her secret and found it impossible to sympathise with her point of view or her belief.
I was also shocked by her behaviour as she probed into the mystery that she was trying to solve,
I think that it is a clever story with many twists, gradually revealed as the book progresses. I feel that it contains careful plotting but I am not sure that I like it.

The undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill is an exceptional delve into the very dark mind and pretty sad life of Grace. I could not put it down; although I recommend going with etiquette and not reading it at the dinner table!

I found the book's death cleaning subject matter facinating, depressing and definitely gory, but it intertwines with the mystery of the missing Valerie, to give a beautifully written, very unique book. I highly recommend it.

Thanks to Netgalley, for allowing me early access to this book in return for a fair review.

Author C.S. Robertson has created a distinctive voice in Grace McGill. A cleaner who takes care of the dwellings of the recently deceased, she takes an exceptional pride in her work. Grace is a fabulous character and one who does not always make the best choices.

Original and immersive, this is a book that messes with your head and confounds your expectations. The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill is the story of what happens when Grace McGill thinks she has found a similarity between the most recent houses of the dead that she has cleaned.

Robertson’s central character is lonely, dedicated, sometimes a little obsessive about creating perfection in her work. Bleach is her friend. In her life there is only George, her cat and a father who is both abusive and needy and to whom she attends with the penance of a dutiful daughter who resents each and every task she undertakes for this poor excuse of a man. Grace leads a solitary life, alone and a little damaged, we feel, but with a real sense of purpose in her life as she makes the lost found again – she sees them and that comforts her.

It’s not a happy life that Grace leads, but she takes a kind of contentment from honouring the dead through her work. And it is that need to honour the dead that drives her to consider the link between her last three death cleans. These were lonely people, too. Each left undiscovered for some time. Grace hates that there was no-one to visit these people; no-one to know that they had died and to mourn them. So she often goes to their funerals, too.

And when she discovers that link, she is compelled to see where it leads her and the result is a dark, compelling mystery that fascinates and absorbs the reader in the mystery and puts Grace in real danger.

I absolutely loved this character. So well-drawn, with such a distinctive voice, Grace is unlike any other character I have met. Robertson’s story is a dark, psychological thriller that drops surprise bombs all the way through the narrative. The characters are down to earth and richly drawn and the plot line absolutely riveting.

The sense of place is fabulous, especially the parts of the book set in Bute, which sing with the pleasure that this island brings to all those who visit.

Verdict: Distinctive, compelling, rich and surprising, this is a beautifully plotted book that delivers in all the right ways and Grace McGill is a character you will not forget. Dark and delicious, like the best chocolate this book will melt a little when it reaches your heart. Highly recommended must read.

I’ve read lots of great things about this book and I was really looking forward to it but have to be honest that it wasn’t my favourite read. I can completely understand why people are raving about and I thought it was really well written but I found the theme a bit depressing. It kept me reading though and I will read CS Roberston’ next book.

Welcome to Grace’s world. Grace is a death cleaner; she deep cleans places where people have died, usually when they have lain undiscovered for many weeks. She is meticulous and obsessive about her work, and often takes a memento or two with her before making a diorama of the room.
Her latest job is cleaning up after the death if Tommy Agnew who died 5 or 6 months ago in a tenement in Glasgow. No one seems to have noticed that he had died. Certain aspects of his room intrigue Grace and she decides to investigate more. Before she knows it she is involved in something far darker and more dangerous than she intended.
The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill is a fantastic and highly accomplished novel. Grace is a truly original narrator, and as she reveals more of herself and her story you realise that the book is taking a very different turn and everything you have read needs to be reconsidered. It certainly fits into the category of thrillers but there is so much more to the book than that. You really come to care about Grace, and the historic crime that she uncovers throws up many more uncomfortable questions. The descriptions of Glasgow and the Isle of Bute are evocative and give the book a real sense of place.
Thank you to #netgalley and #hodderbooks for allowing me to review this ARC.

3.5 ⭐️‘S

Grace is a death cleaner. When a body sits undiscovered for any length of time, Grace is the one to call. After a thorough cleaning and disinfecting, Grace should be finished with the job, but she can’t walk away. Why did it take so long for the bodies to be found? Wanting to know more about the deceased, Grace investigates their lives and even makes dioramas of their death scenes. While all the deaths look natural, Grace notices a daisy at more than one scene. Is there more to these lonely peoples deaths? Grace digs in deeper when a death brings up questions about a long ago missing person case, a case that’s never been solved. Will her digging find answers? This book started extremely strong and had a very interesting premise. Halfway through there’s a twist, a twist that came out of left field as there were no hints leading up to its . From that point forward, I found myself a bit disillusioned and wished that Robertson would have taken the story in a different direction.

Grace's job is to clean up after death. She often has to clean up after a body has not been found for quite some time and so tries to ensure the person is not forgotten. She finds herself tugging on the thread of a mystery about the disappearance of a young girl 50 years ago.
The story takes turns that are not expected and kept me gripped all the way through.

Unusual and eerily delightful! If Eleanor Oliphant had decided to be a cleaner specialised in sanitising locations where severely decomposed bodies have been discovered, she would be Grace Mc Gill.. This is the quirky story of Grace who sometimes get emotionally attached to the departed she cleans after and how she becomes obsessed with one in particular but not everything is what it looks like and she soon becomes untangled in a complicated search for answers related to events 50 years ago.
An inventive book with a very loveable character which will grip you and leave you amazed as well as unsettled. A definite must read!

The Undiscovered Deaths of Grace McGill by C. S. Robertson is a very unique read. It’s almost a book of two halves. The first part is a much slower paced storyline than the next but it does set the scene and leads you down a path which takes a somewhat surprising turn.
I found the main character, Grace, a bit hard to like or identify with but I warmed to her as the story gathered momentum and she had her encounters with a number of men (who are key players in the denouement of the story). No spoilers so suffice to say there’s a bit of detective work and a generous dollop of surprise in how Grace brings this tale to a conclusion. Decently constructed characters who are rounded out enough to engender intense dislike and a reasonably credible, and somewhat sad, plot line. A very decent four star read

Dark and twisty, steeped in historical crimes and with a quiet rage burning through it, this was a really interesting exploration of loneliness, solitude, and what happens when someone has nobody to check on them.
Grace McGill is a cleaner, but a very specialised one - she cleans up when bodies are found that have been left for so long that they becomes a biohazard. Respectfully, she deals with making places liveable again, clad head to toe in biohazard gear, disinfecting and bagging, disposing, and dealing with the end of a life that was forgotten.
In the scope of this book, Grace uncovers a mystery, and starts to investigate, determining whether a series of seemingly innocent deaths were related, and ends up tangled in a situation that's much darker and more complex than she thought.
She's a really interesting and quite unique protagonist, and this was a really unusual novel, full of twists and turns. There are many developments which come layer after layer in this book, so every chapter feels fresh. Nobody in this book is likeable (except maybe George), but that doesn't really affect enjoyment of the book. It has a very fresh and unusual feel about it. This is Robertson's debut, so if the next novels have as interesting a viewpoint as this, then there is a standout career ahead.

This book is unlike anything I’ve ever read.

The premise is so unusual in that a cleaner delves in to the lives of people who have died and she has cleaned up after them.

Dark and twisty and really enjoyable.

I was interested in reading this book when I saw it was about a death cleaner and delighted when I realised it was set in Glasgow with more than a few familiar landmarks.
I found the book to be a bit of a slow start, but it took an unexpected turn and then I was hooked and couldn't put it down, things became altogether much darker than I had anticipated.
I really enjoyed Valerie's story within the story.
My thanks to Netgalley and the Publisher for my eARC in return for my honest review.

This 8s 9ne book where words fail me to give a proper description. Its a very different read than I would normally undertake centred as it is around Grace and her Cleaning company which specialises in deep cleaning properties where the occupants have died and lain undiscovered for long periods.

It is a very dark book and follows Grace in her daily life which is often quite lonely.

During the course of her Cleaning jobs she uncovers a mystery surrounding the disappearance of a young woman some fifty years ago and becomes obsessed with finding the answers.
In the process she is trying to maintain a normal life and deal with an alcoholic and abusive father.

Despite the darkness of this book I couldn't put it down.

It isn't every day you come across an occupation you may have imagined existed but never overly thought about the work of those who clean up after the deceased. I am not talking undertakers but those who wipe away the last remnants of the sloughing shell which was once a human being. We are introduced to the smells of heavily decomposing bodies from cadaverine, putrescine, skatole, indole and hydrogen sulfide. The former two describe themselves and we all recognise the latter as rotting eggs. This is the life of Grace McGill. Surely a strange occupation and rather a strange person. You see, she recreates the room the deceased expired from in miniature as a way of remembering a life passed and a body left undiscovered for months. This she does in her down time, she has a fair bit of that as she lives alone with her cat. But Grace is a bit more complex than first imagined and harbours some dark secrets in the manner of Harold Shipman. She sees herself both as a caring individual who aids the passing of a soul and an avenging angel of death. Juxtaposed or what? She also is quite the amateur slueth, especially when the police don't seem to take her seriously. But why did she contact the police? Was she trying to turn herself in or did she have a split personality disorder? Quite an unusual novel with several twists and turns. However, I think her job would have required more heavy lifting than she was capable of and therefore she would be one of a team. Carpets and mattresses are heavy things to shift from floor to floor. Not a novel for those with a queasy stomach.

Absolutely amazing book, totally unlike anything I’ve read before. A slow and steady but really interesting start to reel the reader in and then a twist that really ramped it up. The ending was just as it should have been, so fitting. This is a definite 10 out of 5 stars for me!

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion.