Pitted Against Your Blood: 6 Books with Explosive Family Secrets

I’ve always been fascinated by the question of how well you can truly know another person. We all have secrets, after all. But what happens if that person is your own child—and they may have committed a murder?

In my new novel Reasons to Lie, three mothers are forced to question how well they know their own teenagers after a fellow student at their elite Manhattan high school is murdered on a class trip. Each of the women would like to believe her child is innocent, but as the clues pile up, no one can be certain. This question of whether we can trust our own children and how far would we go to protect them is one almost every parent grapples with at some point—though hopefully without a murder!

When families are pitted against each other in the aftermath of a tragedy, money, class, and access to power almost always play a role. In Reasons to Lie, the three women come from very different backgrounds with secrets of their own. As the investigation intensifies, they must decide whether to betray each other to protect their families, even if it means covering up the truth.

This volatile mix of communities torn apart by privilege, suspicion, and murder is irresistible to me as both a reader and a writer. Here are six books that brilliantly explore this terrain.

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Helen Schulman, This Beautiful Life

Like Reasons to Lie, Schulman’s book is set in the rarified world of an elite Manhattan school. Richard and Liz Bergamot have recently moved to New York and are striving to fit into the upper-class world they suddenly find themselves in. (Think kindergarten birthday parties at the Plaza Hotel.)

When their fifteen-year-old son, Jake, is caught up in a sexting scandal, the fallout exposes shockingly bad behavior by his classmates, their parents and the school itself. Jake is suspended and the incident quickly hits the tabloids. Schulman has a terrific eye for detail and the book dives into the underbelly of money and class, including the extremes parents will go to protect their children as well as their own reputations in a world where status is everything.

Bruce Holsinger, Culpability

The Cassidy-Shaws, a family of five, are heading to their summer vacation rental in Massachusetts when their self-driving car is involved in a deadly crash. Seventeen-year-old Charlie was at the wheel but who exactly was steering, Charlie or the car itself? And what did his parents and two tween sisters see that they’re not admitting?

A routine police investigation takes a left turn as long-buried secrets that Charlie, his two tween sisters and his parents are each trying to hide threaten to upend their lives. Oh, and that tech billionaire who just happens to have the house next to theirs? He may not be such an innocent bystander. Holsinger combines a moving family drama with propulsive page-turning action that tackles some of the most complicated issues of today.

Linda Wolfe, Wasted: The Preppie Murder

This true crime story goes behind the headlines of a case that rocked Manhattan decades ago and reverberated for years. Robert Chambers had already been kicked out of a couple of boarding schools when he landed at a private school in Manhattan. Less privileged than his moneyed peers and with a history of bad behavior, he nevertheless was able to charm a classmate, Jennifer Levin.

One summer night, after the two were together, Levin’s body was discovered in Central Park. Wolfe details the botched investigation and the media circus that surrounded the case. Chambers eventually pleaded guilty to first-degree manslaughter after famously using a “rough sex” defense.

Dervla McTiernan, What Happened to Nina?

McTiernan, a bestselling thriller writer, knows how to grab you from the first page. Though they come from different sides of the tracks, twenty-year-old Nina Fraser and her boyfriend Simon Jordan seem like the perfect couple—until they take a trip to his wealthy family’s Vermont vacation home and only Simon comes back. Did Nina simply get lost in the woods or was she murdered? The Frasers and Jordans soon turn on each other, dividing the small town they live in.

As conspiracy theories about what happened to Nina abound, the Jordans pull all the legal and PR levers that their money makes possible. Determined to find out the truth about what happened to their daughter, the Frasers go rogue. Both families will do anything to save their children—but will that be enough to uncover the truth and find Nina?

William Landay, Defending Jacob

The basis for a hit mini-series, this brilliantly paced, twisty legal thriller explores the toll on the Barber family after their 14-year-old son, Jacob, is accused of murdering a classmate. Andy Barber is an assistant DA in Massachusetts and a respected member of the community before the murder occurs. He believes his son is innocent but trying to prove it will mean revealing secrets he would prefer to keep buried.

As the trial begins, the community turns against him and his family starts to fall apart under the pressure. Andy is torn between loyalty to his son and the truth—if only he knew what that was.

Jean Hanff Korelitz, You Should Have Known

Okay, yes, this is another masterful thriller set in a fancy private school, but this time it’s one of the mothers who is brutally murdered. Korelitz turns her gimlet eye on how privilege and power can cover up a multitude of sins. At its heart, though, the thriller ties directly into the theme of how well you can know another person and what the price is for getting it wrong.

The main character, Grace Reinhart Sachs, is ironically a therapist trained to see beyond the façade, but the murder forces her to consider how well she really knows her husband, a well-respected doctor. When he disappears, she begins to question if anything in her marriage was real—and just how far her husband will go to keep the facts buried.

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