‘Not A Happy Family’. Image via Twitter @Culturefly.
‘Not A Happy Family’: Shari Lapena is back with domestic noir mystery
Best-selling author Shari Lapena’s latest thriller, ‘Not A Happy Family’, dives into the dark underbelly of a seemingly perfect family.
‘Not A Happy Family’. Image via Twitter @Culturefly.
Writing a good thriller is no mystery for Canadian author Shari Lapena. Her 2016 novel, The Couple Next Door, has garnered her world-wide fame and has established her as a formidable mystery writer.
Ever since her 2020 thriller, The End of Her, the world has been eagerly awaiting a new thriller by Lapena, and the wait is finally over. Not A Happy Family was released in July and quickly became a New York Times Bestseller.
In Not A Happy Family, Lapena invites the reader over the threshold and into the house and home of the “perfect” family, but perfect soon turns to petrifying. As you look a bit closer and you venture a little deeper, you soon find that all is not as it seems…
‘Not A Happy Family’: Classic, domestic noir mystery
“Domestic noir” is a subgenre of the thriller/crime fiction world and it centres around secrets, scandals and crime within the supposedly “safe” place of the home.
Lapena unpacks this idea of “domestic noir” in her latest thriller and she does so expertly. Filled with fast dialogue, tense pacing and twists upon twists, Not A Happy Family is an immersive read you won’t want to put down.
Even though the writing, timeline and style of this thriller is nothing new, it is a still a good story. As a classic whodunnit, Not A Happy Family is a fast-paced and ‘light’ thriller with a good mystery at the centre.
“It must have looked perfect, before all this. A trail of blood leads up the pale, carpeted stairs. To the left, in the lovely living room, a large China lamp is lying broken on the Persian rug, its shade askew. […] There’s no blood but the sickening smell of it is everywhere. Something awful has happened here.”
Excerpt from the prologue of Not A Happy Family by Shari Lapena.
‘Not A Happy Family’: Synopsis
In this family, everyone is keeping secrets–especially the dead. Brecken Hill in upstate New York is an expensive place to live. You have to be rich to have a house there. And they don’t come much richer than Fred and Sheila Merton.
But even all their money can’t protect them when a killer comes to call. The Mertons are brutally murdered the night after an Easter Dinner with their three children, who are all grown-up by now. The children are all devastated.
Or are they? They each stand to inherit millions. They were never a happy family, thanks to their capricious father and neglectful mother, but perhaps one of them is more disturbed than anyone knew.
Did one of them snap after that dreadful evening? Or was it someone else that night who crept in with the worst of intentions? It must be. After all, if one of your siblings was a psychopath, you’d know.
Wouldn’t you?
Praise for ‘Not A Happy Family’
“[Shari Lapena is] the queen of the one-sit read”.
Linwood Barclay – New York Times bestselling author of ‘Never Saw it Coming‘.
“A masterful whodunnit, perfectly paced and expertly plotted, that had me guessing all the way through. I loved it and couldn’t put it down”.
C. L. Taylor – Sunday Times bestselling crime author of ‘The Lie‘ and ‘Sleep‘.
“Shari Lapena is one of the best thriller writers in the business”.
Steve Cavanagh – international bestselling and award-winning author of the Eddie Flynn novels.
More about the author
Shari Lapena was born in 1960 and is a Canadian novelist. Lapena is best known for her 2016 thriller The Couple Next Door, which was an international bestseller.
Lapena worked as a lawyer and English teacher before beginning her writing career. Her debut novel, Things Go Flying, was published in 2008 and quickly went on to be shortlisted for the Sunburst Awards in 2009. Her second novel, Happiness Economics, was a shortlisted Stephen Leacock Award finalist in 2012.
Her works continue to enchant readers and keep them spell-bound to the very last page, making her a firm favourite in the thriller/mystery genre.
Not A Happy Family is published by Bantam Press and is available at Exclusive Books for R272.
