The following version of this book was used to create the guide: Cole, Alyssa. When No One Is Watching. William Morrow Paperbacks, 2020. Kindle edition.

Cole’s thriller takes place in a contemporary fictional Brooklyn neighborhood called Gifford Place. The novel alternates between two first-person, present tense narrators with snippets of conversation from a community app called OurHome interspersed between chapters.

The primary narrator is Sydney, a 30-year-old Black woman who recently returned to Gifford Place after a traumatic divorce. The second narrator, Theo, is an unemployed white man who moved to Gifford Place after purchasing a house with his girlfriend, Kim.

The novel begins with a historic brownstone tour of Gifford Place. Sydney chides the tour guide for the omission of Black history and resolves to create her own tour honoring the neighborhood’s historical and current Black community.

After the tour, Sydney ruminates on the rapid gentrification of Gifford Place while overhearing racist comments from her new white neighbors. Mr. Perkins strolls by and invites Sydney to a block party meeting at his house. Sydney regularly deflects friendly inquiries about her mother and lies that Yolanda is at a care facility.

Meanwhile, Theo regrets purchasing a home with his girlfriend, Kim. Theo and Kim live on separate floors of the home and constantly fight. The couple visits a corner store, where Kim threatens to call the police on a Black woman who refuses to let Kim cut into the checkout line. Theo recognizes the woman from the brownstone tour.

Sydney and Theo both attend Mr. Perkins’ block party meeting. Theo apologizes to Sydney for Kim’s behavior and volunteers to help Sydney as amends for the confrontation. Sydney reluctantly agrees and later establishes a safe word for instances in which Theo’s white privilege interferes with their relationship.

While Sydney and Theo work on the tour, disappearances and hostile encounters plague Gifford Place. An Uber driver threatens Sydney and later impersonates a maintenance man at her house; lifetime Black residents vanish, replaced by white couples. Police inexplicably arrest Sydney’s young neighbor, forcing his family to sell their home to pay the resulting legal fees. Drea shares with Sydney VerenTech’s secret plans for a billion-dollar renovation of Gifford Place.

Kim demands Theo move out of their home in one week and leaves. Theo drinks a bottle of wine Kim left behind and witnesses an attack on Mr. Perkins, but Theo succumbs to the alcohol before he can help. When Theo and Sydney attempt to check on Mr. Perkins the next day, his tenant informs them Mr. Perkins has gone to the hospital with his daughter. Shortly after, a white couple moves into Mr. Perkins’ house with his dog, Count. The couple claims they found Count at a shelter while making harrowing allusions to slavery.

Amidst the chaos, Sydney struggles to contact Drea, believing Drea is sick of Sydney’s neediness and panic attacks. Sydney watches the “typing” signal on her text thread with Drea for days, growing fearful of Drea’s unwritten words. Sydney investigates Drea’s room in their shared home and makes two frightful discoveries: a pile of bedbugs on Drea’s comforter, and a $50,000 check made out to Drea from a company that preyed on Sydney’s sick mother. Drea’s new air conditioning unit is missing from her open window.

Theo shares Sydney’s suspicions about the strange events in the neighborhood. Unemployed and horrified by Kim’s hateful behavior toward their Black neighbors, Theo spends more time with Sydney and confronts his own internalized racism. Theo receives offers from white neighbors to work for VerenTech and BVT Realty, but he denies both.

Sydney and Theo visit the Day Club Crew, a group of elderly neighbors, in their search for local history to incorporate into Sydney’s tour. The Day Club Crew share stories about their fight for survival during a neighborhood blackout in 1977.

Sydney and Theo confide their darkest secrets to each other. Theo has history with the Russian mob; Sydney’s mother is actually dead. The cathartic exchange results in sex.

Sydney and Theo continue investigating at Theo’s house and discover that each company preying on Gifford Place residents is part of one conglomerate seeking to steal land from Black people. Right after the discovery, Sydney finds texts from Kim threatening Sydney’s life on an iPad while Theo texts in the kitchen. Drea’s missing air conditioning unit sits in Theo’s window.

Sydney flees. Theo calls to warn her that a white man is inside her house. Sydney grabs her mother’s revolver and ducks into a hidden stairwell, where she stumbles upon Drea’s body. Sydney emerges from the stairwell to confront Theo as he comes to her rescue. The intruder appears and attacks the couple. Sydney shoots the intruder; Theo takes the man’s phone and discovers the same texts Sydney found on the iPad.

Ms. Candace and other neighbors check on Sydney after hearing the gunshot. Before Sydney can explain, a blackout strikes the neighborhood. Everyone flees as riot police arrive and attack Black residents. Sydney and Theo slip into a cellar underneath the corner store and find an underground tunnel leading to the VerenTech medical center. There, Sydney and Theo find their missing Black neighbors kept as test subjects for an opiate addiction cure. The pair frees their neighbors and moves on to find a group, led by Kim’s father, conspiring about the hostile takeover of Gifford Place homes and medical torture of its Black residents.

Sydney shoots Kim’s father and chaos ensues. Theo confronts and finally kills Kim after Sydney shouts the safe word. Lab assistants capture and restrain Sydney and Theo. The Day Club Crew rescues the pair, wielding the same weapons the group used to defend themselves in the blackout of 1977. Sydney, Theo, and their neighbors escape after setting fire to the medical center, erasing all evidence and forcing VerenTech to publicly retreat from Gifford Place for good.