By Kate Emery
Publisher: Allen & Unwin, 2024
Publisher’s blurb
Holly Jackson meets Agatha Christie in this cosy modern-day YA murder mystery where your closest family are your prime suspects.
Ruth is not thrilled to be spending the weekend at the family farm visiting the ancient GG, her coolly distant step-grandmother. With no internet or phone coverage, Ruth occupies herself by re-reading old Agatha Christie novels, eavesdropping on the adults, and definitely not daydreaming about her sort-of-cousin Dylan.
But when GG dies under suspicious circumstances, Ruth’s dull weekend turns into an enforced-family-holiday-slash-possible-murder-investigation – and she’s not about to let the police get in the way of her chance to solve a real-life murder mystery. With Dylan as the Watson to her Holmes, Ruth soon discovers that plenty of people had reasons to be rid of GG, and her list of suspects grows to comprise everyone in the house. Including, in the interests of fairness, herself.
Review
By Liz Filleul
Spending a weekend visiting her step-grandmother and hanging out with relatives at the family farm isn’t 14-year-old Ruth’s idea of fun. Especially when the farm lacks internet and phone access, and Ruth’s trying to suppress her crush on her sort-of cousin, 15-year-old Dylan.
But the sudden, suspicious death of step-grandmother GG not only keeps Ruth, and her extended family trapped at the farmhouse while the police investigate, but it gives her a chance to solve a murder mystery herself. After all, she’s read plenty of Agatha Christie novels, so knows how to go about solving crimes!
Aided by Dylan and occasionally thwarted by her well-meaning, but (to Ruth’s mind) over-protective father, Ruth sets about investigating where all the suspects were at the time of the murder. The only problem is that all the suspects apart from one (GG’s very attractive farmer neighbour) are members of Ruth’s extended family. Did Ruth’s own father kill GG? Or was it Dylan’s cool mum or her unpleasant boyfriend? Or was it vegan Aunty Vinka? All of them, Ruth discovers, as she snoops around the house and eavesdrops on conversations, have at least one secret to hide – and therefore a motive for murder.
My Family and Other Suspects is a cosy YA mystery that will appeal to upper middle-grade readers as well as its intended 12-15-year-old audience. It’s also an enjoyable mystery for the young at heart, with a clever, twisting plot, a snarky narrator in Ruth, and a small but unforgettable cast of characters. It’s laugh-out-loud funny too, with some terrific banter between the adult characters, as well as between Ruth and various family members.
And the chapter endings! So many times, I’d be drawn into reading ‘one more chapter’ because of a cliffhanger ending, only to find myself doing the same thing at the end of the next chapter as well.
I don’t know whether Kate Emery plans more mysteries for Ruth or whether this is a standalone story, but I really hope it’s the former, and that we see more of this witty teenage detective and her trusty sidekick. My Family and Other Suspects is one of the best books I’ve read all year.