Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter is probably the most unique fiction book I’ve read this year.
The setting is a Netflix-esque true-crime show. And the whole book reads like a transcript of it. It was a bit weird to get used to at first, but once you get to know the characters, the format really grows on you. There are also stage directions included, which at times made me feel, like I really was watching a tv show.
At the center of the book is a twenty-year-old case, where one rainy October night, a young man named Luke Ryder, the step-father of three kids from an upper-class London family, is brutally murdered. But there is one problem: The police never arrested anyone for it.
Now, in 2023, six experts gather in this tv show to try to solve the case by looking at new evidence, doing their own research and discussing their findings in front of everyone. The director of the show is Guy Howard, the youngest of Luke Ryder’s three step-kids. He wants to solve the case, no matter what. Which makes for a fascinating dynamic.
One of the coolest things about the book is the use of mixed-media elements. For example, whenever they discuss some newspaper article, a picture of the torn-out piece is inside the book. There are also maps, other paper documents, voice notes, emails and more. At the end of each episode, there were also some online comments from a Reddit-style forum, where internet sleuths discuss their theories.
The goal of the book is for you to become one of these armchair detectives yourself. On the cover, it even says: “Can you solve the case, before they do?”
To be honest, I couldn’t solve the case fully. There were just so many twists and turns, shocking reveals and more up to the very last page. But that only added to the reading experience.
The beginning felt a bit slow to me, since you need to get up to speed with everything that happened in 2003. Who was involved and what the police already know. But once you’re past that stage, the pace picks up fast. The experts do their own field-research around the globe or via the internet and present their findings. Some are not that interesting, some do change the dynamic of the whole case. The studio-scenes are broken up by interviews with other people and even some recreated/acted scenes from the night of the murder.
I won’t spoil anything here, just know, that almost nothing in this book is actually as it seems. There were so many plot-twists that I stopped to count. Which probably makes this book also a candidate for a re-read, since in hindsight, there was quite a bit of foreshadowing on certain reveals.
Granted, some plot-points were a bit far-fetched in my opinion and not that plausible. But that didn’t diminish the reading experience at all.
What’s interesting is, that this book to me also felt a bit of a stab against this new genre of “true crime reality tv”, where real crimes are solved live in the most dramatic way, just for better tv ratings. With no respect to the emotions of the involved people. You’ll know what I mean when you read it.
All in all, definitely a recommended read for anyone, who likes (true) crime – and maybe grew up with the internet. That “Reddit”-forum really added to the whodunnit mystery for me ;)
One of the best books I read this year: 4.5/5