A woman uploads her DNA online, searching for her father–but the man who contacts her is Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens. From the acclaimed author of Little Sister, this endlessly twisty crime novel asks: What might a family do to protect or expose a serial killer in its midst?
When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the fields, they worried it had the hallmarks of a serial killer.
Now, as they find the second, they know for sure.
Panic about the “bonfire killer” quickly spreads through the sedate, suburban area of Southampton. Women are urged not to travel alone at night, and constant vigilance is encouraged among the local residents. But single mom Aisling Cooley has a lot to distract her: two beloved teenage sons and a quest to find her long-lost father, whom she hasn’t seen since she was a teenager growing up in Ireland.
After much debate she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website, and when she gets a match she is filled with an anxious excitement, that her questions about her father’s disappearance from her life might finally be answered.
But to her horror, it’s not her father who’s found her. It’s a detective.
And they say her DNA is a close match for the bonfire killer…
A KILLER IN THE FAMILY
Gytha Lodge
This is the first book by Gytha Lodge that I have read. From the experience I had reading A KILLER IN THE FAMILY, I can tell we’re going to be great friends.
A KILLER IN THE FAMILY stars DCI Jonah Sheens. We catch up with Sheens on the case of THE BONFIRE KILLER. The killer is watching as the crime scene unfolds. They are playing with the detectives: leaving objects at crime scenes, moving Sheens’ personal items around, and inserting themselves in the investigation.
Meanwhile, somewhere across town, a woman uploads her DNA to a website that helps its members locate family members. She is looking for her father and hopes this website will lead to him and provide closure for her and her sons.
What she finds is something else entirely.
Lodge sets an incredible pace in the beginning and carries it the whole way through. It’s quick and the killer is in your face, their exploits frustrating and provoking. There wasn’t a dull moment. The second the action slows down in one POV you’re switched to another perspective with different variables, keeping the excitement going.
In A KILLER IN THE FAMILY, there are intriguing shifting perspectives that converge in the best way. That was probably my favorite thing about the book. I liked the use of DNA but could’ve used a more updated storyline. Perhaps a new and inventive way of using DNA that is innovative. That is my only complaint and it’s minor.
Thanks to Netgalley, Penguin Random House Audio, Random House Publishing Group – Random House, and Random House Trade Paperbacks for the advanced copies!
A KILLER IN THE FAMILY…⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
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