Common Decency by Tom Allen

It may be quiet in the suburbs, but it’s far from peaceful …

Oak Drive nestles tidily in an unassuming English town. Its uniform gardens overlook a small common and grand oak tree, which the street’s residents survey with smug pride.

It’s a place where it pays to sweat the small stuff. Bins should be placed back in position in a timely fashion, noise kept to a minimum past 9 pm. Sometimes, however, big problems come a calling - and all hell can break loose in sleepy suburbia.

Common Decency chronicles the lives and interactions of these neighbours, as they band together to save their tree from destruction at the hands of developers. As tensions rise and repressed resentments seep out, the secrets of Oak Drive threaten to shatter the well-ordered veneer, revealing some rather more surprising truths…