Twenty years ago Luke Ryder was killed in the garden of the house he shared in north London with his wife. The murderer was never discovered and now his stepson, an aspiring television director, who was only a child at the time of the murder, decides to reopen the investigation in the form of a true crime Netflix show.
A group of 'experts' are assembled to give their input and the investigation is shown through the transcript of the shows that go out live, text messages, newspaper reports, and emails.
The format is unusual and it took me a while to work with it. Reading on my phone was difficult because the text is dark and then pale and varies in size. I would definitely recommend reading this in book format for that reason.
The plot is gripping and fast moving. Each episode of the show is designed to end on a cliff hanger and they certainly do. There are disputes and disagreements between the experts and as more is revealed about them it appears that all is not as it seems.
All in all this is a face-paced read with plenty of twists and an interesting take on a crime novel. I did find that this format kept me, as reader, quite detached from the characters, but it was an enjoyable take on the format.
With thanks to Netgalley and HarperCollins UK, HarperFiction for an arc copy in return for an honest review.

This book starts off quite slow so it took me a bit of time to really get into it. The formatting of it also takes some getting used to - the story is told through transcripts, articles and texts. However once the story started to unravel, I found myself hooked. I just had to know what really happened and who did it - though I did guess the murderer right from the start. If you liked the format of THE APPEAL by Janice Hallett, then you'll enjoy this one!

After her Oxford based police series, Cara Hunter writes a standalone in a format that took me a little time to get used to, focusing on a savage murder in 2003 of the younger husband of Caroline Howard, Luke Ryder, at their exclusive W8 London home of Dorney Place, which the police never solved. Approaching the 20th anniversary of the cold case, the Infamous TV series, will air a 6 part true crime docu-drama, produced by Nick Vincent, that has a Guy Howard who was 10 years old at the time, hoping the family will finally get the answers it seeks. The narrative is in the form of voice mails, emails, interviews, texts, documents, media articles, documents, zoom calls, maps and diagrams.

A group of experts has been assembled to investigate. They have the task of sifting through the original police investigation led by DI Peter Lascelles, and see if they can find enough leads to solve the case. The experts include a retired NYPD detective, a freelance journalist, a KC barrister, a forensic investigator, a retired Met DI, and a forensic psychologist. We follow their discussions, tasks, debriefs, through each episode, as they make stunning progress, chasing information in Australia, Lebanon, Greece, United States and Canada. There are incredible twists and turns, all captured for the small screen. With the cliffhangers, this is TV gold, resulting in the the kind of drama that has a nation enthralled, the true nature of the Howard family dysfunctions are slowly revealed, but will the real killer be caught after so many years?

Whilst this takes a different format from Hunter's usual fare, it contains her recognisable trademark elements, such as inclusion of emails, media articles etc, a well plotted, gripping, compulsive storyline, packed with twists, and inhabited by characters that are rarely as they first appear. This is a fast paced, intense and entertaining crime read, although there were times that I felt it had packed in rather too many twists and angles for my personal taste at the expense of insufficient depth in the characterisation. I have no doubt that many of Hunter's fans will love this, as will readers who discover her work for first time with this novel. Recommended. Many thanks to the publisher for an ARC.

The book did a brilliant job of holding the reader's attention, taking us along on an unpredictable journey. The story telling device using the panel of experts examining various materials - including personal interviews, text messages, newspaper headlines and police reports - took a little time to absorb, but proved very effective in the end.
This is an absorbing mystery, offering plenty of surprises, and it was a well-paced and enjoyable read. Highly recommended.⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

I loved the plot and have enjoyed books from this author. I just could not get to grips with the format of the writing and sadly did not finish.

This is impossible to read on kindle and I do not have a device I can read it from. I skimmed some of this on my phone and it was super interesting and I am pumped to read it but I simply can’t read a 400 page book on my mobile phone.

I think this should not have been offered as an eARC but I think the premise the writing and the story I got from the first bit I read should not be punished for it.

I will definitely buy this book to read on paperback so I am giving 5stars for fairness to the author but feel a bit ripped off by the arc on kindle.

Thank you to the author and NetGalley

I am a fan of Cara Hunter’s series featuring DI Fawley so I was keen to read this, her first standalone novel. While it’s clear in the blurb that the book is based on a fictional true crime series I hadn’t expected the format to be so script-like. I personally found the format to be a bit of a challenge as it is like ‘reading’ a tv show but I think this is a really clever concept for a novel. It feels very current and I think it could attract folk who consider themselves as non-readers. In typical tv style, each episode finishes with a bombshell that guarantees you will be back to watch the next episode. If you were looking for a book full of twists and turns that reads like a true crime documentary then you just found it!

I don't believe I've read any Cara Hunter novels before, but I thought "Murder in the Family" was a nice introduction to her work. I really liked the unique storytelling structure which was told via a variety of media (newspaper articles, text messages, voicemails, scripted re-enactments and "live" filming of the documentary. It did remind of The Staircase documentaries, especially the latest one which revisits the crime a good few years later. However, since this is fictional, the author has been able to make some very clever twists. If this were broadcast, it would make addictive viewing.

having read Cara Hunter novels before I was excited to start this standalone thriller.
It was a fun read and I enjoyed it.
A good holiday read.

I had not read Cara Hunter before, although I am aware that she has a long-running series which has been on my TBR list forever. Anyway, having come across this stand-alone, I thought it would be a good place to start and it was a very enjoyable read.

The crime novel revolves around a true crime show, investigating a cold case. Luke Ryder, younger husband of the wealthy Caroline Howard, stepfather to filmmaker Guy Howard, ten at the time of the crime, and his two sisters, Maura and Amelie, was found murdered in the garden of their London home. Now a team of experts have been gathered, including a retired Detective Inspector from the London Metropolitan police, a journalist involved in the case at the time, a leading criminal prosecutor, a forensic psychologist, a retired detective from the NYPD and a crime scene investigator are brought together to re-examine the evidence. Guy Howard is insistent that he wants to discover the truth, but, before the investigation is done, the cost to those involved – both family and members of the team re-examining the evidence – will be high.

This is a fun read, which maybe has a few too many coincidences to be a five-star read but was good fun. I like crime books which revolve around podcasts and shows but hope that the conceit will not be too overdone, too quickly. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

What a fantastic read! Before this book, I had only read one other Cara Hunter book Close To Home. I had then purchased the next two books in the series and they have sat patiently waiting in my Kindle Library to be read. I will now be devouring all Cara's book straight away! 20 years have passed since the murder of Luke Ryder, who was found in the garden of the family home. Luke's stepson Guy now a filmmaker makes a Netflix Documentary along with a team of experts to find out who killed Luke. The story is set out like your watching a documentary, along with newspaper cuttings, Twitter messages, texts and emails. You really feel like your part of the cold case. I really enjoyed the style of the book and it kept me gripped. If you really paid attention along the way there was definitely hints as to who the murderer was. The ending had my mouth hanging open in shock. This book gave me a huge book hangover and will definitely be in my top ten for the year.

Murder In The Family by Cara Hunter

20 years ago, Luke Ryder was found murdered at the home he shared with his socialite (and incredibly rich) wife and 3 step children. His step son, Guy, was 10 when he was murdered and now, as a director of a true-crime TV show, he wants answers about the mystery of his stepdads death. A group of experts take a closer look…

Told via transcripts, emails, newspaper articles, text message exchanges and voicemails, the format of this book is so different and really enjoyable. It’s a great story that continues to grow arms and legs throughout as each of the experts focus on a different lead, no matter how cold.

The experts are all realistic characters and you can get the feeling of the conflict of their fields throughout the book. To bring in different histories and agendas of each of these experts was done creatively and you really felt the cliffhangers hit you as if you didn’t have access to the following pages!

I loved this book! I felt like part of the team and at some points I wished I had access to a white board and markers - my notebook had to do! I could visualise the show and how it would look as a Netflix binge-able watch - very creative and original.

Everything unravels then makes sense at the end - blow after blow, I could not stop reading!

Published 20th of July

Thanks to NetGalley and publishers Harper Collins

I have read other novels by Cara Hunter and really enjoyed them but this one left me a little bit cold. To be fair, I think one of the difficulties was that the sections that were e.g. newspaper reviews did not lend themselves at all well to ebook format and were difficult to read. This may be something that will be sorted by publication hopefully.
But I also felt that the characters were not fully developed and I found it hard to care about their fate. The ending seemed to me rushed and contrived.

I found this a very original and interesting spin on the traditional "whodunnit" murder mysteries. Loved the characters and all the twists.
Thanks to NetGalley, the editor and the author for the opportunity to access this ARC!

Cara Hunter's latest novel is a brilliant whodunnit! It is different from her previous books, in which DI Adam Fawley was the lead detective. I love the DI Fawley series, but this one is definitely up in the chart,
The book is written in a unique format, where each conversation is in either documentary format or text or comments from Twitter. Some of them are also interspersed with newspaper cutting. I think it is the format that takes most of the points. As with TV documentaries, each of the episodes (or chapters) ends with a cliffhanger.
The book's journey through the drama to reveal the ending is phenomenal. There will be times, I am sure, the readers will get a semblance of Christie's books. The ending of the book and the last newspaper cutting will leave the readers thinking about the book ( and in my case, I was smiling after finishing the book).

I completely recommend this book.
My rating for the book is 5 stars.

Thank you, NetGalley, Harper Collins UK, and Cara Hunter for giving me the opportunity to read the book.

A 20 year old unsolved murder gets the Netflix treatment. Guy Howard was 10 when his stepfather was murdered in the garden of the family home.

Guy is now a high profile filmmaker and involved in the Netflix series "Infamous" which is now going to investigate this cold case with a hand picked panel of experts who will re-examine the existing testimonies and evidence and search for any new information.

Each chapter is told as an episode of the series complete text messages between the parties and a newspaper review of each episode.

A really enjoyable book written in an unusual style, with reveals and cliff-hangers along the way.

If you like a good whodunnit then I highly recommend this one.

Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC in return for my unbiased review

I will read anything Cara Hunter writers and as a big fan of her Adam Fawley series I was excited to read her first standalone book. Murder in the Family is such as unique format, mostly written as a transcript of a true crime TV series with voice mails, text messages and newspaper clippings also weaved throughout. This does admittedly take a bit of time to get used to and I do think it's a struggle to relate to any of the characters without really getting their POV as a result but I still really enjoyed it regardless. The book is packed with plenty of twists and turns and it kept me engaged throughout. Admittedly I wasn't entirely satisfied with the ending and I think there were much cleverer it could have gone instead but this was overall another really great read from Cara that I would thoroughly recommend.

I loved the plot and characters in this novel but I struggled with the format. It is written as a script for a TV show and I found it hard to read an entire book using this format. If you can get past this or you don't mind it then it is worth a read. A group of people are trying to solve a 20 year old murder of Luke Ryder. Was it his wife, his step children a friend, or a stranger? All the way through the novel I changed my mind and I was surprised by the ending. Cara Hunter has done it again.

You have to hand it to Cara Hunter - her writing always conveys a sense of energy and innovation in format and style. However, for this reader at least, this latest offering is, perhaps, a step too far in terms of the framework for a novel. The concept is clever, in that the plot and action is conveyed via what amounts to the transcript of episodes of a television programme, interspersed with extracts from media and related ‘evidence’. The problem is that this approach can only go so far in terms of conveying the dynamic sense of a television series and fails to exploit one of the author’s key strengths, which is the easy fluency of her writing. Full marks, maybe, for experimenting and testing the boundaries of writing for an audience and many other reviewers seemed perfectly happy with this innovative approach; this jury, however, remains moderately unconvinced.

Original and different take on a murder mystery. The reader is part of a cold case review in an unsolved murder case going back some 20 years. Luke Ryder is found dead and an investigative team comes in to review the facts and evidence as as tv show.

Rather than a straightforward narrative, the story unfolds with use of transcripts, mail, newspaper articles etc which are presented in their original format. It does feel, as a reader, that you’re directly reviewing a cold case based on accumulated paperwork. It’s been done before, but it’s a difficult format to manage as a novel and keep the pace and plotting right. Cara Hunter has achieved this and the who,e is a gripping exploration of a murder where everything is not what it seems. There are so many twists and turns and a coup,e of literally jaw dropping moments. I really enjoyed this complex drama that played out in real time. A big winner for me.