Okay, i was obsessed with this format. As a voracious true crime reader/watcher, this was easy for me to follow as it felt like I was reading a podcast. I think this will be easier to read in a physical format because I am not sure how some of the charts and information will come across on an e-reader. I need to read more from Hunter immediately (if you have any favorites let me know!). And the ending? Oh man…

This book was something else!

I really enjoyed it, a murder being solved 20 years later. The format this is written in made the book! They are making a documentary about the murder to find that answers. There is email, text messages, voice mail, redirect post, and news clipping..

Because of the formating with all the extra fun stuff I will say a physical copy read of this would be 100% better

A murder that rocked a British family 20 years ago comes to light again in this documentary style novel by Cara Hunter. Luke Ryder was found dead by Guy Howard (now a critically acclaimed filmmaker) at age 10. This story follows his documentary piece for a streaming platform. All characters in this novel are the family of Guy and investigators of this cold case. Hunter introduces all investigators with their resumes & news articles.

The producer asks Guy what’s his reasoning behind creating this documentary of his own family life and reliving the death of his stepfather. His answer? “I want to find the truth. Whatever that truth may be.” I can say without spoiling, the truth does come out after many twists and turns.

My rating for this book was 2 stars for a few reasons. The story was VERY interesting. The dynamic of having a family member investigate a murder of their step parent and finding out in “real time” the identity of the killer was fascinating. But the way this novel was written wasn’t for me. It read like a movie script or if I was reading the closed captioning. I felt immersed, but still found myself skipping parts to get to the actual story.
This brings me to my second reason. After about halfway, it started to become predictable. I had a feeling who the killer was about 70% in. There was a lot of unnecessary drama included (which all characters do mention). Even one of the investigators comments “This is starting to sound way too like Big Brotherish for my liking” and I couldn’t agree more. It was like crime trash TV in book form.

Now, reading this, I thought it was going to be the setup of a normal novel. And to my surprise it wasn’t. The execution on HOW it’s written is good but it wasn’t written for my own liking. Hunter covers a lot of prejudices and how we as a society have changed in the last 20 years. I also feel like readers from the UK may understand the novel a little bit better? It was based in the UK, and some activities or society norms mentioned seemed far fetched to me. But that could be because I’m from the US.

Either way, this book appeals to the true crime lovers and those who binge (like myself) crime documentaries. It’s a good afternoon read, but the writing wasn’t a style I enjoyed.

Thank you William Morrow Paperbacks, NetGalley, and Cara Hunter for the access to this ARC in exchange for my honest opinion.

This review is also posted to my blog @ BooksBestiesBooze

eARC Review: Murder In The Family by Cara Hunter

Pub Date: September 19th 2023

My Rating: 4.5/5 stars

Thank you to Netgalley and William Morrow for an early copy of this book to review!

My Thoughts: While browsing on Netgalley, I came across this book and the premise of it immediately intrigued me. It follows a group of investigators that are being filmed for a tv show about them solving a 20 year cold case. A cold case the the director himself wants solved, as the victim was his Step Father.

I thought that the author did a great job implementing mixed media into the telling of the story. It made for a quick and suspenseful read! I personally loveeee mixed media stories, it makes the story so much more engaging. A majority of the book is dialogue since we are reading the investigators piece together the case, which I loved. It honestly felt like I was reading the script of one of those csi-type tv shows. I thought the writing was great and the mystery itself had me guessing until the end. I was able to solve it by the end of the book but I thought the author did a good job stringing the reader along.

If you are a lover of mixed media, true crime, and mystery novels I think you will enjoy this book! I can’t wait to get a finished copy myself.

Thanks Netgalley for allowing me to read this book. When a man is found dead in his home, the police were never able to find out who did it. Cold case individuals try to determine who did it. This book lagged at times

I really struggled with the layout out of the book reading like a script, etc. The book itself is good. The style is just not for me. I think I would have enjoyed an audio version better.

Thank you for the opportunity to read this arc.

I liked how quick the book read, I wish I could actually watch this unfold on tv instead of just reading it! There were a lot of twists I wasn’t expecting, but I really enjoyed. Overall, this was a good book, and I would recommend it to others.

Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter @williammorrowbooks I had so much fun reading this! Utterly unique! I loved the format and the twists.

This review contains spoilers, sort of.

3.5 stars... I thought it was pretty good. I knew who the killer was pretty early on. I just had a feeling even when they were going through all the suspects. I felt like it was an interesting and intriguing story, however the killer being who I thought was a major let down because it was just too boring of an outcome for how wild of a ride it was to get there.

A mind-blowing and TWISTY true crime reality show slash cold case murder mystery that was AMAZING on audio with a full cast of narrators! This is a must read for true crime lovers. Unique and unputdownable. I can't recommend enough and want to watch this as a movie IMMEDIATELY!! Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an early digital copy in exchange for my honest review. Just go into this one blindly and thank me later!

This story is told in true crime style about an unsolved murder 20 years ago. I found the way it is told truly unique and made the story. There are a lot of twists and turns and I thought it was a great thriller which I read quickly. I received an advanced readers copy and all opinions are my own.

Guy is an aspiring filmmaker who decides to work with this production company to film a series about a cold case involving his own family. In 2003 Luke Ryder, the stepfather of Guy Howard, was found dead in the garden of their nice home. The 3 children were at the house but all of them say they can’t remember what happened. There was a police investigation that yielded nothing and no suspects. While filming this series the truth comes out with many shocking twists and turns. Everyone is shocked when someone is arrested and it turns out it was the wrong person.
This book is written in emails and dialogs from the tv series. I was not crazy about the format of the book, however I really did enjoy this read. I did not expect the ending of the book. I enjoyed that it made you believe certain people were the killer and then a very shocking twist at the end. The book defiantly kept my attention and I wasn’t really expecting that due to the format.

Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter is a gripping mystery. Twenty years ago Luke Ryder's dead body was found in the backyard of the family home. The case was never solved.

Now, Guy Howard, Luke Ryder's step-son, is directing a multiple episode documentary trying to solve the cold case. They have compiled a group of experts in different areas of crime solving, and are going back over all of the evidence, re-interviewing witnesses, and finally getting the family on the record about what happened that night. As they start going back through all the case files and digging into everything, they begin unearthing details that had never been found before. From there, they keep pulling threads and everything starts unraveling. Episode by episode, more and more secrets are exposed. Who was Luke Ryder? Who would want to kill him, and why? What really happened that night?

The book was formatted like a script, with each chapter being an episode of the documentary. I didn't realize I would be reading a screenplay, which took a little bit to get used to. Once that happened, though, the book went relatively quickly.

All in all, it was a gripping mystery with a lot of cliffhangers and surprises. If you enjoy putting together the pieces of a mystery puzzle, then you will probably enjoy this novel.

Thank you to NetGalley and William Morrow Books for a digital copy of Murder in the Family for review consideration. All opinions are my own.

DNF at 28%. I am totally drawn in by a premise of a cold case being investigated in a documentary - I will pick that book up EVERY time I see it. I also enjoy when books have a multimedia element or epistolary - just something different. I had high hopes for this one on both counts but unfortunately it just really didn’t work for me. The way the dialogue was written out for the episodes felt very clunky. So many characters I was often having to remind myself who was who. I just couldn’t get into this one. If you decide to give it a try - I would recommend trying on paper instead of kindle. That might help. Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for the free ebook.

First,
I loved how this book was formatted. The dialogue, the images, the “documents”, made the reading experience SO fun! I loved all of the different aspects that were added, like the resumes, the comment sections, the news headlines, even how they explained the “reenactments”. It was very well done!

There were a couple things I didn’t love. The story itself did get a bit confusing at times, but that may just be the nature of this particular plot. Also, the way this was written made me feel a bit disconnected from the characters, however I was much more immersed in the story and the puzzle-solving of it all, so this could just be a personal preference.

Overall, an excellent true-crime type of twist to a classic “whodunnit” thriller!

Murder in the Family is a fast-paced, twisty thriller told through press releases, emails. text messages, voicemail transcripts, posts to a true crime forum, and other methods. Guy Howard is a filmmaker working with Nick Vincent to compile a group of experts to look into an unsolved murder case from 20 years ago for a true crime tv series. Surprisingly, the case he picks involves his own stepfather who was killed when Guy was only ten years old. Guy hopes a fresh look at the case will finally give his family some closure. His sisters, however, have doubts which the reader sees through text messages they send to each other.

I love books written in this type of format and thought the story was fast-paced and engaging. It becomes evident that some of the experts working on the case have their own secrets and agendas, leading to several shocking plot twists. Getting to see what was going on behind the scenes and on camera of this fictional true crime documentary, I wished it was one I could actually watch!

There are several characters in the book, but I think there could have been deeper character development for a few of the main players. That would have made this great book even better. I didn't feel like I got to know all of the key characters of the book. However, the format and the twists made up for it and I loved this clever, entertaining book. I would rate it 4.5 stars.

I received an advance copy of this ebook from NetGalley and William Morrow Books at no cost, but my review is voluntary and unbiased.

In December 2003 Luke Ryder was found dead in his garden, his wife, stepson and stepdaughters had to make peace with the fact that they'd never know the truth of what happened to Luke. That is until twenty years late which is the present time.
Infamous, a new Netflix documentary aims to crack this famous cold case and shed some light on Luke Ryder's life.
The production team of experts re-examine the evidence and looks to find new lines of enquiry to get to the bottom of this mysterious murder. Every episode ends on a cliffhanger leaving the audience gripped and the experts under fire.
Whatever your theory, you won't see this ending coming.

I love a crime thriller and this one was really good. The format of Murder in the Family worked excellently with the TV show plot. The book was written like a transcript with newspaper cuttings, articles, pictures, text messages and phone messages that gave an authentic and exciting feel.
There were some really great twists in the plot with an excellent conclusion.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for sending a digital ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Murder in the Family
Cara Hunter

This book purports to be more or less about the filming of a docu-drama about the murder of Luke Ryder, unsolved for twenty years. Guy Howard, the victim's step-son, is the filmmaker making this multi-part series for the "global hit" Infamous.

The story is written in texts and emails and scripts etc back and forth among all the different key players in the original case as well as experts in Crime Scene Investigation. Unfortunately, for me the jumble of presentations was confusing and off-putting. I lost track – and then lost interesting by about half way through the book.

Maybe younger, more technically savvy readers may enjoy this format. I did not.

Guy Howard has suffered many tragedies in his life but the one involving his stepdad‘s murder is the one that haunts him the most. At the age of 10 his two sisters 13 and 14 years old came home to find their stepdad dead in the front yard and although his mom was first accused that was never the evidence to prove her guilt and so the crime went unsolved. Now it’s 20 years later and they want to do a show to re-look at the Crime and guy is all for it but he has no idea what implications it will have on his life and those he loves. When his mom married a guy 14 years younger than her it was a scandal in the high society neighborhood but when he was found bludgeoned to death the Hennepin more to talk about as they start to investigate the crime they will have mini twist and turns. Not everyone is as they pretend to be an even the people who agreed to re-investigate the unsolved murder will eventually turn on each other. This book does as the summary claims read like True Crime and what a great book it was with many twists and turns there is no way any lover of thrillers and mysteries will be able to look away while reading A Murder In The Family by Kera Hunter. I want to think HarperCollins UK, William Monroe and met Kelly for my free arc copy please forgive any mistakes as I am blind and dictate my review.

I just loved the epistolary format of this book! It was such a fun way to digest this mystery! Told through newspaper articles, text messages, emails, voicemails, interviews and online chats this author really covered the entire gambit!

This is a story told in 6 episodes of a true crime series. This particular cold case is about a man named Luke Ryder who was murdered at home. Luke’s wife, and two stepdaughters were all at home, yet saw nothing. After many years no clues arise and the case goes cold. This case is one no one will forget so once the case is revisited soon new detail emerge and the truth comes out!

I would highly recommend reading this book in a physical or ecopy so you can see all the fun pictures of how the author presents this information. This really felt like a real docuseries. What a masterpiece! There are a lot of characters in this book which took me a hot second to keep straight but once I did it worked out well! There were a lot of surprising twists I didn’t see coming. This book was clever, unique, brilliant, genius and a masterly crafted experience. Well done Cara! I loved it!