The Family Inside

November 18, 2024
Garner’s engrossing latest (after The Night It Ended) succeeds thanks to some well-executed sleight of hand. Iris Blodgett and her daughter, Ellory, are still mourning the death of Iris’s husband three years ago when they receive notice that the bank is preparing to foreclose on their home. Iris’s new boyfriend, Hugh, suggests they move into his family estate with him and his mother, sister, brother, and sister-in-law. Though she’s only been seeing Hugh for two months, the typically careful Iris agrees. After the Blodgetts’ first night at Ravencliff manor, however, Ellory vanishes, prompting a hysterical Iris to hire a smarmy private investigator to find her. Then Hugh’s sister-in-law disappears as well, and Iris starts to wonder why, exactly, her new boyfriend was so eager to gather everyone under one roof. Mysterious heirlooms, signed murder confessions, and midnight hallucinations raise the temperature on what at first appears to be a standard domestic thriller, and Garner ushers the proceedings toward an audacious final twist that recasts everything that came before it in a new light. This is stay-up-all-night reading. Agent: Melissa Danczko, Stuart Krichevsky Literary.