In the wake of their traumatic discovery, the baby arrives, and Mia can’t shake her fixation with the monstrous crimes that happened right above them. Haunted by the terrible things she saw and desperate to find answers, her obsession pulls her ever further from her husband.
Secrecy shrouds the mystery of the attic, but when shards of a dark truth start to emerge, Mia realises the danger is terrifyingly present. She is prepared to do anything to protect her family—but is it already too late?
Title: Keep It In The Family
Author: John Marrs
No. Of pages: 369
Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
Boy, oh boy, where do I start?!
I picked Keep It In The Family by John Marrs after my partner started to read it and was gasping, wowing and speeding through it. I needed me a dark, sinister distraction of a read, and John Marrs’ most recent thriller of a read definitely satisfied that craving!
From the prologue, series thirty-nine years earlier than Mia and Finn’s move into a derelict house, my spine was chilled. The contents of the first 4 pages (see ‘sinister AF’ comment) set the bar so high for the novel, with each chapter exceeding that until I couldn’t take anymore and had to moreishly devour the short, snappy, superbly pitch-black chapters.
Mia and Finn are a young couple looking to move out from Finn’s parents’ home. Mia believes that Debbie, Finn’s mum, has her claws too far into her son, and she’s hoping the move will create some distance between them all. When they ‘win’ a derelict house in an auction, their dreamy future becomes a nightmare when they discover that their perfect homely escape was once a house that witnesses unspeakable things. As we read through, the pieces of the crimes that took place begin to fit into another. It’s so expertly done and so satisfying!
The way that Keep It In The Family is the family, is with injections of transcripts, skips to the past from an unknown POV, and alternating POV chapters shared between Mia, Finn, and the parents, Debbie and Dave. Each chapter works perfectly with one another. The whole novel is disturbing in the delicious way crime thrillers are, but it has that John Marrs spin that I LOVE! For a lovely human, this book is 😱
Keep It In The Family is an intricately plotted storyline executed perfectly, with webs of intrigue, darkness, and death. You’ll feel yourself falling down the rabbit hole of the cold cases, unable to claw yourself out until the final page, and even then, you’ll be lost in a WTAF kind of suspension.
Bravo, Mr. Marrs!
The Reading Closet 