When No One is Watching is a psychological thriller by Alyssa Cole, author of twenty romance novels and two graphic novels. The novel is a New York Times bestseller and winner of the 2021 Edgar Allen Poe Award for Best Paperback Original. It is Cole’s thriller debut and explores themes of structural racism, pharmaceutical abuse, and romance in the throes of psychological struggle.

Please note, this guide contains expletives and references to racially motivated violence.

Plot Summary

Sydney Green moves back to her mother Yolanda’s home in Brooklyn after her marriage fails. She is excited to be back in her neighborhood until she discovers that gentrification has forced many of her friends and neighbors out, replacing them with white neighbors who aggressively call the police for any inconvenience. Inspired by a white-centered historical tour of the neighborhood, Sydney starts her own historical tour that highlights the lives of the Black residents. Rumors of disappearances have put her on edge, as have recent arrests of her neighbors.

Theo has recently moved into the neighborhood. He and his girlfriend Kim are gentrifiers; they bought a Brownstone (a house made of or resembling that of brown sandstone intimately tied to New York neighborhoods) and are renovating it. Theo is unemployed, and he and Kim are struggling to rebuild their relationship after the latter’s affair. But Theo becomes increasingly disturbed by Kim’s mounting racist speech against their neighbors.

The tension in the changing neighborhood is heightened by an app called OurHood, on which neighbors post problems and events in the neighborhood. OurHood turns into a virtual space for neighbors to debate crime and gentrification, highlighting the growing racial tension in Brooklyn.

Kim breaks up with Theo and leaves for her parents’ house to give him space to find a new place and move out. Theo witnesses what he thinks is a home invasion in neighbor Mr. Perkins’s house. In the days that follow, Mr. Perkins goes missing. Drea, a sister-like figure to Sydney, also goes missing. Sydney’s mother owns the neighborhood’s community garden, but one day, police officers and a new owner show up to claim it. They destroy the garden, exacerbating Sydney’s failing mental health. Theo and Sydney confide in each other.

Theo has no money because he comes from a mob-associated family, forged a resume to get a job in an elite corporation, then stole from the clients’ bank accounts.

Sydney opens up about her emotionally abusive ex-husband. It is also revealed that Sydney’s mother had fallen ill and into debt. She signed on with a company that would pay the debt on the condition that they seize ownership of the house upon her death. Desperate to keep the house in the family, she made Sydney promise not to lose the house. Though everyone thinks Sydney’s mother is in an assisted living home, Sydney confesses that she buried her mother in the garden.

Theo tries to exhume Sydney’s mother’s body from the garden but can’t find it. More white neighbors move into the houses of the missing Black residents. In Theo’s house, Sydney finds messages on Kim’s iPad that reveal a plan to get rid of her. Sydney arms herself with her mother’s gun, while Theo tries to call her to warn her that a white man has broken into her house. Sydney hides in the secret service passageway of the house, where she finds Drea’s dead body. When she goes back to the entrance of the house, she points her gun at Theo, believing that he is part of the plan to get rid of her. The other white man enters with gun drawn, and Sydney shoots him. Theo stabs the man and steals his phone, on which he finds texts between him and Kim—revealing a sexual relationship and more plans for the “rejuvenation” of the neighborhood. The neighborhood’s power goes out, leaving only the abandoned hospital with lights. Sydney and Theo head to the hospital with guns.

Inside the hospital’s basement tunnels, Sydney and Theo discover the missing Black residents attached to tubes, drugged and labeled as “testing subjects.” They corner a researcher and discover that the residents were kidnapped for opioid cure testing. They happen upon a meeting led by Kim’s father. A fight ensues in which Theo kills Kim and her father. Sydney and Theo return to the basement to free the kidnapped subjects but are taken down by two men who prepare them for testing. The pair is saved by their Black neighbors, who free the prisoners and burn down the hospital.