Written with considerable emotional intelligence and some very clever humor, it’s hard to believe this is Tracy Barone's first novel. All of the children were in line to inherit millions of dollars. But, would any of them kill their parents to hurry the process along? The family is nervous, anxious, untrusting. I don't believe any of them! They are all liars, maybe psychopaths too.

The Happy Family: The gripping new psychological crime

When Beth’s long-lost mother abruptly turns up on her doorstep, Beth asks no questions, instead seeking the relationship that she has craved for so many years. Keen to see her a part of the family, Beth encourages her mum to stay in the family home for the long-term so that she and Beth can catch up after such a long absence. Beth is delighted that her children respond so positively to their grandmother and when Alice announces that Beth also has a step-sister, it is like the dream of a properly family is suddenly coming true. We start off knowing that Fred and Sylvia Merton are dead. Who killed them and why is the central mystery. Well, pretty much everyone who was related to them had a reason to, as Fred was a first class jerk to his three children and Sylvia stood by and let it happen. The Mertons are uber-wealthy and each of the three children (as well as Fred's sister and another surprise person) are due to inherit a great deal of money from the estate. The police aren't buying that the brutal murders were a robbery gone wrong, yet they can't seem to come up with evidence as to who committed the crimes. Each of the children have motive and possible opportunity. Secrets upon secrets are revealed as they try to piece together the solution. But no, Beth takes everything this woman says as gospel truth. It’s bleedingly obvious to the reader that this is all too good to be true. Told by mum that the two women you thought were your best friends had made some horribly hurtful comments, wouldn’t you want to ask them personally for an explanation? But not our Beth, she just pours another drink and sniffles away. It’s hard to buy into a plot which contains a gaping hole of this size.Three traumatized children: one of them or all may have inherited the genes of their father, suffering from same psychopathic tendencies to commit such a brutal crime!

The Happy Family by Jackie Kabler | Waterstones

Shortly after Alice arrives Beth begins drinking quite a bit and starts shutting out her friends and neighbors. Alice tries extra hard to be the supportive mother that Beth has always wanted but Beth begins a downward spiral which is affecting all her relationships especially with her own children and also imagines a man following her everywhere and feeling that someone is out to get, her although soon after an unforseen and unbelievable event occurs that shatters Beth world where she may lose her job and also the custody of her children unless she can discover what is causing her life to rapidly fall apart. WHO KILLED THE MERTONS AND WHY? Was it one of the couple's unlikeable adult children? All of the adult children would have inherited millions from their parent's death. Or was it the housekeeper/nanny, a friend/colleague......or someone else? I loved how the lead detective thought everyone he interviewed was the killer. There is a lot of scrambling, a lot of lies, a lot of secrets, a lot of trying to protect others while protecting oneself. There are a lot of liars with their pants on fire in this book. Not all that glitters is gold. Sometimes those who look like they have it all don't have much in terms of common decency.This book was a slow burner. It’s been a while since I’ve DNF’d a book because I am usually pleasantly surprised in the end. That was for sure the case here. There will be more rain, more darkness, of course there will. But there will always be rainbows. You just have to weather the storm, and then lift your face up and look for them. They gather together for the Easter dinner from hell, where Fred makes an announcement that has all the children leaving hurriedly, angry and upset. Even Irena, the housekeeper who had been the children’s nanny, leaves. Audrey, Fred’s sister, missed the dinner, but she has a complicated history with her brother, and was my favorite character. Her loathing of the Merton children was visceral. Happy Family is full of anything but. Cheri Matzner is the middle-aged version of a child abandoned in an inner city health clinic. Her marriage is in shambles, and, to make matters worse, childless. Her relationship with her parents is, put nicely, complicated, and with little hope of repair as her father has recently passed. Those same parents were the ones who adopted baby Cheri, after suffering a hopeless tragedy that leaves one of them feeling ostracized from the family unit. Somewhere around 50% mark we all thought we figured out who the killer was, but I am glad to say we were wrong.