A scream cut through the night as they watched flames engulf the woodland. Fire ripped through the trees, leaving only charred branches behind. And then they saw it… on the ashen forest floor… was a body.
Police officer, Mitchel Prescott answered the phone with a shaking hand. It was the one call he had been dreading. It was the hospital at Green Acres… his father Thomas, had died in the night.
Returning to the small town he had been avoiding since he was a child, Mitch must lay his father to rest.
When he arrives, the close-knit residents refuse to speak about Thomas’ death, other than to explain he was found burnt to death in the woods and his dementia was the likely cause.
But when Mitch discovers traces of accelerant on his father’s body, he’s certain it wasn’t an accident. Then his childhood home is broken into, his father’s study ransacked, and a rock thrown through the window warning him to leave.
Mitch is convinced Thomas had discovered something that had got him into trouble… something that would threaten his entire family.
But what secret is worth killing for?
What did I think?
I rather enjoyed that! The Family Lie is pretty creepy with an underlying hint of menace and the town of Green Acres is definitely somewhere I would not want to visit! Its oddness reminded me of the setting of Royston Vasey from The League of Gentlemen but the characters in The Family Lie are more threatening in a duplicitous kind of way.
Although it has quite a gruesome and intriguing beginning, it took me a little while to get into the story as it flicks back and forth between Mitch and his sister Bella. When their father dies, Bella refuses to return to Green Acres so Mitch is the one who goes back home to arrange his father's funeral. Mitch has just quit his job in the police force but he sniffs out something sinister about his father's death and begins to investigate, but someone seems intent to stop him.
I loved the character of Bella and her psychic ability which added a supernatural air of mystery to the whole proceedings. There is so much more to Bella's story than meets the eye and I loved discovering everything about her. It's odd but I didn't really take to Mitch as much as Bella, although I loved Mitch's interactions with the cat, but I think perhaps I just found Bella to be a more interesting character.
Chilling and intriguing with a hint of the supernatural, anything could happen in The Family Lie which makes it impossible to predict and difficult to put down. I enjoyed it; it's an entertaining, disturbing and imaginative crime thriller.
I chose to read a digital ARC from NetGalley and this is my honest and unbiased opinion.
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