Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter

480 pages

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publishing Date: July 20, 2023

Netgalley

 

Blurb

 IT WAS A CASE THAT GRIPPED THE NATION

LUKE RYDER’S MURDER HAS NEVER BEEN SOLVED

In December 2003, Luke Ryder was found dead in the garden of the family home in London, leaving behind a wealthy older widow and three stepchildren. Nobody saw anything.

Now, secrets will be revealed – live on camera.

Years later a group of experts re-examine the evidence on Infamous, a true-crime show – with shocking results. Does the team know more than they’ve been letting on?

Or does the truth lie closer to home?

 Can you solve the case before they do?

The truth will blow your mind.

 

Review

It appears to be my time for reading different/original forms of mystery. And I’m loving it.

I have to admit that I haven’t watched any shows that investigate unsolved true crimes and I’ve only listened to one or two podcasts on the subject. So, I can’t vouch for how accurate the reconstruction described in this book is. What I can say is that the combination of crime, characters, set-up, and surprises made for a fascinating and all but unputdownable read.

As stated in the blurb, what we have here is a team of experts brought together to reinvestigate a murder that happened twenty years ago. The whole investigation will be broadcast over several episodes. The director of the show, and this is the first of many shocking revelations, is Guy Howard who was ten years old when his stepdad, Luke Ryder was killed in the garden of the house where they lived with Guy’s mother and two older sisters. The rest of the team consists of experts in a variety of fields such as former police officers, a forensics expert, and a psychologist.

As I said at the start of this review, this is a(nother) book not written in a traditional format. Apart from detailed descriptions of the episodes (in a screenplay/play-board sorta way) and verbatim excerpts from a chat group discussing the programme and the case, we’re also privy to private conversations (via text messages and emails) by those who play a role in the case and/or the investigation. And wouldn’t you know it? Those exchanges all manage to make those communicating look suspicious in one way or another. What we don’t get is any idea of what anybody is thinking while the story progresses. If it isn’t said or (possibly) betrayed by reactions or facial expressions, the reader isn’t aware of it. Almost as if we really are watching a show on a screen.

I thoroughly enjoyed this story. It hooked me from the start and the only reason I took a break from reading when I was halfway through is that I do need sleep occasionally. Having said that, there were one or two moments when I wondered how something could possibly be known by the person in question, or when I felt that maybe coincidence was pushed just a little too far and too hard. Obviously, I can’t say anything more about that since much of this story’s strength lies in the well-spaced reveals of new information at opportune times and I wouldn’t want to spoil those moments for others.

Overall, Murder in the Family, is a well-written and original story taking the reader from plot twist to plot twist without ever stopping to come up for air. Just when you think you’ve figured out what has been happening, a new spanner is thrown in the works, and the eventual solution will almost certainly take your breath away.