Sometimes, when I walk my neighborhood at night, I glance at the lit-up windows, watch dark silhouettes move behind curtains, wonder at the words spoken, the secrets shared or hidden, the dynamics at play behind those closed doors. More often than not, my mind will craft an unsettling narrative for the people inside—not because I wish them harm or unhappiness, but because in my own life, I am constantly writing about deeply dysfunctional families.
Take my latest thriller, The Family Plot, which features the Lighthouses, a true crime obsessed family who gathers to bury their patriarch only to find the remains of their long-missing brother already in his grave. The Lighthouse children, now adults, endured an odd upbringing: they were each named after people who had been killed, their mother taught them true crime stories alongside algebra and geography, and they often held ceremonies honoring victims of murder. With the discovery that their brother is one such victim himself, the Lighthouses’ strange past and disturbing dynamics are brought into the spotlight, for both their neighbors and the police. Who knows what someone might see if they look into the Lighthouses’ windows at night?
Luckily, novels keep us from actually having to creep across people’s lawns and press our faces to the glass. The thriller genre in particular has no shortage of dysfunctional families for us to ogle, and when you mix dark dynamics with even darker secrets, there’s bound to be an explosive story. Here are some of my favorite thrillers featuring especially twisted families.
He Started It, by Samantha Downing
A road trip is the perfect chance for a family to bond together and grow even closer. Unless, that is, you’re the Morgans, the family at the center of Samantha Downing’s sophomore novel, He Started It. According to their grandfather’s will, Beth, Portia, and Eddie Morgan must recreate a road trip they took as kids in order to receive their inheritance. But each of these siblings has an agenda of their own, and it isn’t long before it seems that not everyone will survive. Deliciously fast-paced, this book features all the friction and bitterness you’d expect from a dysfunctional family, but with a final showdown between the siblings that’s almost dizzying in its knockout surprises. This unputdownable thriller is sure to make your own family, no matter how messed up they are, seem like the Brady Bunch.
Death in the Family, by Tessa Wegert
Shana Merchant, an investigator in a small upstate New York community, is called to the wealthy Sinclair family’s estate, located on a private island, where one family member is believed to be dead and the rest are acting plenty suspicious. As a storm grows outside, Shana soon realizes that she and her partner won’t have any backup coming, and they’ll need to figure out who the killer among them is, before they become one of the victims. Wegert threads tantalizing tension into nearly every interaction between the Sinclairs, making it clear that secrets abound. And as Shana navigates the family’s shifty—and shifting—dynamics, she discovers that the Sinclairs’ particular brand of dysfunction is as rocky and unpredictable as the waves that rage out in the storm.
The Roanoke Girls, by Amy Engel
The Roanoke family has a dark secret—one that, upon discovering it, made teenaged Lane Roanoke run far away. Now in her twenties, Lane is pulled back into the shadows of her family at the news that her cousin is missing. But in searching for her cousin, Lane becomes vulnerable to the family she made it her mission to leave, and this time, she might not escape them so easily. To say much more about the specific relationships at play in The Roanoke Girls would be to spoil the enthralling page-turner that Amy Engel has crafted. This is a thriller that lingers, haunting the reader long after the final page.
Do No Harm, by Christina McDonald
At the start of Christina McDonald’s third novel, Emma’s family is as functional as it gets, with her loving husband and sweet, precocious child. But when her son is diagnosed with leukemia, and Emma’s insurance won’t cover the only treatment that stands a chance at keeping him alive, she turns to selling forged Oxy prescriptions from the clinic where she’s a doctor. Emma knows the risks of what she’s doing, but she’s willing to do whatever it takes to save her son—even as the detective tasked with investigating her drug ring is her very own husband. Throughout Emma’s riveting corruption arc from doctor to drug dealer, McDonald cranks up the tension, offering twist after twist that further muddies the dynamics of this once wholesome family.
You Love Me, by Caroline Kepnes
Joe Goldberg has worn many hats: bookseller, stalker, murderer. But in the third installment of Caroline Kepnes’ spectacular You series, Joe wants to be something completely new—a family man. When he sets his sights on librarian Mary Kay and her teenage daughter, he’s sure he’s found the answers to all his past failures, and this time, he’s going to do things differently. He will be good. He will not kill anyone. He will be the man Mary Kay thinks he is, and he definitely will not leave any bodies in his wake. But old habits die hard, and with Joe in the family, there’s sure to be more than a few messes to clean up.
Burn Our Bodies Down, by Rory Power
For seventeen years, the only family Margot has known is her mother. But all that changes when Margot discovers a photograph from her mother’s childhood that leads her to Phalene, a town she’s never heard of, and Vera, a grandmother she’s never met. As Margot runs away from home to try to learn more about Vera and her roots, she discovers that there’s a very good reason her mother kept her past such a secret. Rory Power injects her consistently creepy, mysterious, and genuinely surprising story with one of the most messed-up family trees to ever feature in a thriller, all the while catapulting Margot through an emotionally vivid and important journey.
Walking Through Needles, by Heather Levy
When the man who abused her as a teen turns up murdered, Sam should feel relief; instead, she throws herself into the investigation, desperate to exonerate her stepbrother, Eric, who is now the prime suspect. In the process, Sam revisits the darkness that lurked in her family’s home, recalibrating her understanding of the complicated relationships that were nurtured under its roof. Heather Levy’s gripping meditation on violence and desire takes us straight into the heart of one deeply flawed family, and the devastating consequences of long-buried secrets.
Sharp Objects, by Gillian Flynn
Gillian Flynn is the master of writing dysfunctional families (Gone Girl anyone?), but it’s in her stellar second novel, Sharp Objects, where those insidious dynamics really shine. When reporter Camille returns to her hometown to cover the unsolved murder of one girl and the disappearance of another, she’s forced to reckon with her troubling past and finds herself relating a bit too much to the victims. Throw in Camille’s menacing mother, her precocious thirteen-year-old half-sister who’s part wild child, part picture of innocence, and the memory of Camille’s dead sister, which lingers in the Victorian mansion like a ghost, and you’ve got the makings of a family that will either self-destruct by the end—or ensnare Camille in their grasp.
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