When crime fiction features multiple members of a family, the protagonist soon learns that to mess with one of them is to mess with more of them than bargained for. This is definitely the case for Lucy Lancaster—my genealogist main character in Fatal Family Ties, the third book in my Ancestry Detective Series—after Lucy is hired by one of her former co-workers and ends up entangled in three branches of her client’s family.
Whether the family members in question are in a lighthearted cozy, a dark-and twisty thriller, or within a historical mystery, the more relatives that crop up, the more the action ramps up. The stakes are higher, as is the tension. The lengths to which the family members go to close their ranks, keep a secret, or take revenge on one another cannot be matched by someone outside their clan, even if it’s a found one. And when it comes to humor, often of the embarrassing kind, no one can take the mickey out of another sibling or cousin like the relatives who know them best.
These are the ways of any family, whether loving and solid, or dysfunctional as the day is long. It’s what makes family-centered mysteries so interesting to write and to read. To illustrate, here are seven books from all over the crime-fiction map where multiple family members are at the heart of each mystery.
A Deadly Inside Scoop, by Abby Collette
A loyal, tight-knit family and a great group of friends come together in Abby Collette’s cozy mystery featuring Bronwyn “Win” Crewse and set in Chagrin Falls, Ohio. After graduating with her MBA, Win is excited to take over and revamp her family’s ice cream parlor. But Win’s opening day doesn’t go so well when she finds a dead grifter outside in the snow. When it’s discovered the dead man has had a longstanding feud with Win’s family and her father is arrested for his murder, Win must search out the real killer before it puts the freeze on her business, her family, and her life.
The Family Upstairs, by Lisa Jewell
Unraveling the pasts of three families connected to a mystery a quarter of a century old is the basis of Lisa Jewell’s dark psychological suspense novel set in London. On her twenty-fifth birthday, Libby Jones receives a letter containing the names of her birth parents and news that she has inherited a mansion in London’s wealthy Chelsea neighborhood. But those who live in the mansion have been waiting for Libby’s arrival for a long time, and they don’t want to leave now. Through three narrators both in the past and the present, the stories of the families connected with both the house and its sinister past are revealed in order to discover the real story behind the night Libby’s parents died.
The Firekeeper’s Daughter, by Angeline Boulley
Set in Sault Ste. Marie and Sugar Island, Michigan, Angeline Boulley’s young-adult thriller centers around eighteen-year-old Daunis Fontaine, who walks the line between both the Ojibwe side and the Fontaine side of her family. After delaying college to help her grieving mother, Daunis witnesses a murder connected to a potent new drug. In order to help with an FBI investigation that will have her bridging her mind for chemistry with her knowledge of Ojibwe traditional medicine, Daunis’ will have to risk opening old wounds to find the truth even as she begins to fully understand the kind of family that his her Ojibwe community.
The House in the Cerulean Sea, by T.J. Klune
Found family and how they will rally around and support one another is the main theme of T.J. Klune’s magic-tinged fantasy novel, with just a touch of mystery. When mild-mannered Linus Baker of the Department of Magical Youth is sent to an orphanage on an island in the Cerulean Sea to investigate six unusual orphans who may have the power to bring about the end of days, his life will be forever changed. As he grows closer to the children as well as the mysterious Arthur Parnassus, the master of the orphanage who has a secret of his own, Linus will learn how the particular magic that is acceptance can bring love and a truly amazing new family along with it.
Murder in Old Bombay, by Nev March
Tight family bonds and the determination to prove that two women did not commit suicide forms the backbone of Nev March’s atmospheric historical mystery set in 1892 Bombay, India. As Captain Jim Agnihotri recovers from his battle wounds, he reads of how Adi Framji’s beloved wife and sister seemingly deliberately fell to their deaths from a clock tower. At Adi’s insistence that the women would not have committed suicide, Captain Jim offers his assistance to Adi and the Framji family in discovering the truth behind the tragedy. Yet when Jim’s questions threaten to expose a past the Framjis would rather keep hidden, he must navigate the tangled circumstances surrounding the family he respects and his quest to uncover the real reason behind the two women’s deaths.
The Thirteenth Tale, by Diane Setterfield
Long-buried family secrets and scandals make for dark twists and turns in Diane Setterfield’s gothic mystery set in Yorkshire, England. After spending sixty years concocting fabricated biographies about her life to the public, the elderly and famously reclusive author Vida Winter will finally tell her true story to young biographer Margaret Lea. Yet revealing the tragic story of Miss Winter’s family brings suppressed truths to the surface, forcing both Miss Winter and Margaret to face and understand the past events that made them both who they are.
Winterborne Home for Vengeance and Valor, by Ally Carter
Adventure and found family are the crux of Ally Carter’s middle-grade thriller set at the mysterious mansion called Winterborne House. After accidentally starting a fire at a museum, orphaned ten-year-old April ends up at Winterborne House with four other children named Sadie, Violet, Tim, and Colin. But the key left around April’s neck by her long-lost mother tells her she has another connection to the mansion, one that’s linked to the tragedy of the Winterborne family and its sole remaining heir, who went missing a decade earlier. But when the fate of Winterborne House is threatened, it is up to April and her four new, found siblings to save their first true home by untangling the clues left behind by April’s mother and finally solving the Winterborne family mystery.
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