All Secrets are for Public Consumption in MURDER IN THE FAMILY (2023)

Originally posted May 31, 2024.

Guy Howard: That’s private—
Reporter #4: It’s in your series, mate. That makes it public in my book.

Full disclosure: I don’t like true crime. I could point to the emotional voyeurism, or the “stranger danger” messaging, but beyond that, true crime is the antithesis of everything I like about, er, fake crime.In a fictional murder mystery, loose ends are tied up neatly. There is a definitive solution that builds order out of chaos. Perhaps justice prevails. In real life, an amateur re-investigation of an unsolved murder is unlikely to bring any particular closure—it’s all just speculation about real things that happened to real people, some of whom may still be alive. But I got a window into what appeal the genre holds from Murder in the Family by Cara Hunter, a mystery novel whose format imitates the transcripts of a fictional true crime documentary, while lightly satirizing the medium it’s doing. (It also fell into a few of the same pitfalls as the real thing, but we’ll get there.)

Murder in the Family follows the production and broadcast of a true crime documentary, Infamous. The story is told in epistolary fashion, through primary sources, phone calls, emails, social media, and transcripts of the show. Filmmaker Guy Howard is directing a miniseries based on a crime that rocked his family in his youth, the brutal murder of mother Caroline Howard’s much-younger second husband, Luke “Easy” Ryder. Although Luke was found in the sprawling back garden of the Howard family’s London mansion, no evidence could be found against the most likely culprit, Caroline, and the crime has baffled the police (as well as a few other documentarians) for twenty years. But with Guy on the crew, the production has far greater access to the Howard family and home. The documentary is a reality TV format that follows a team of expert investigators: a retired cop, a journalist, a barrister, a psychologist, a forensic technician, and an American P.I. Per the cover, the reader is challenged to use each unearthed clue to “solve the case before [the experts] do.”

[A]ll too often the gruesome details of someone else’s pain are offered up simply for the purposes of entertainment.

It quickly becomes apparent that the expert team are not impartial investigators. Everyone involved in the show has a connection to the case, in ways that bleed into the filming—and comes as a surprise to their colleagues. Producer Nick Vincent takes on a Mephistophelean aspect, as he smirkingly turns the cast against each other and delays key revelations for higher ratings. And what bombs they drop! Scandals, secret children, crimes of all sorts. The whammy at the end of the first act, regarding Luke’s personal history, was particularly shocking. Despite being called “Murder in the Family,” the bulk of the novel has the investigation spiralling off in outlandish directions, in the most literal sense: to Australia, Greece, the United States, Lebanon, Canada, Namibia.

With the number of twists and richly-woven web of deceit, I wondered if Murder in the Family was the type of investigation that true crime viewers are wishing for in real life: decades-on pot-stirring that turns up new, concrete evidence, wild and soapy revelations in every episode, and actual confrontations with the involved parties. Even for someone like me, the structure is addictive. It’s an interesting format that pings a “hunt for clues” part of my brain which isn’t necessarily activated for all mystery novels—more reminiscent of the Murder Dossiers series, or I Spy books. I was hooked for the first two-thirds of the story.

Conversely the last act, and ultimate solution to the mystery, I found a bit of a let down. The revelations fly thick and fast—maybe too fast, because we don’t really get any time to dwell on them. Despite the accusations of the show getting too “personal,” we actually don’t get deeply into the thoughts and feelings of the cast, let alone the victim. One of these reveals I found to be a very poor way for a narrative to treat a black character—it retroactively justified this character having been racially profiled by the police (up to this point treated as a terrible societal ill), essentially victim-blaming (not to mention, the police had no way of actually knowing about this), and just generally hit a negative stereotype that I didn’t find appropriate or necessary for the plot. It felt out-of-step with the other characters’ big secrets.

That’s the characters. How about the mechanics of the mystery, then? Was I able to solve it before the experts? Well… yes and no. The nature of the solution itself was quite easy, and I think any suspicious mystery reader will probably get there quite early on. I got there so early on that I was certain it would be yet another red herring, and was increasingly dismayed as I approached the final chapter. It was a weak solution, I felt, that didn’t live up to the promise of the book—in fact, the material clues discovered by the investigators didn’t point to this at all. So much so that even at the very end, I expected a different, twistier solution, and was actually quite surprised that it didn’t end up being the case—or at least, was never stated to be the case.

Perhaps it’s because I still have Ms. Ma: Nemesis on the brain, but my interpretation of what happened was very different (ROT 13 for spoilers):

Nf fbba nf Zheqre va gur Snzvyl erznexrq gung “Yhxr Elqre’f” snpr unq orra qrfgeblrq, V jnf vafgnagyl fhfcvpvbhf gung gur qrnq zna jnf Yhxr Elqre ng nyy. Zberfb jura vg’f erirnyrq gung ur VFA’G Yhxr Elqre, ohg n pba negvfg jub unf gnxra ba n fgevat bs fgbyra vqragvgvrf. Urer vf jung jr ner gbyq nobhg Yhxr/Revp/Wbanu’f Z.B.: ur svaqf lbhatvfu oybaq zra gung svg uvf qrfpevcgvba, jub unir qvrq jvgu gurve snprf qvfsvtherq orlbaq erpbtavgvba (va Revp’f pnfr, cbffvoyl ol Wbanu), naq gnxrf gurve jnyyrgf, gura hfrf gurve VQ gb nccyl sbe n cnffcbeg jvgu uvf bja cvpgher. Ur gura tbrf gb n arj pbhagel, jurer ur chgf uvzfrys va n cbfvgvba gb trg n ybg bs zbarl sebz na byqre jbzna. Jr nyfb xabj gung va uvf svefg qvfnccrnenapr, ur snxrq uvf bja qrngu ol nonaqbavat qvfgvapgvir negvpyrf bs pybguvat nf jryy nf uvf jnyyrg.

Ng gur raq, jr svaq bhg gung gur zlfgrel ivfvgbe jub Wbanu-nf-Yhxr jnf zrrgvat gung avtug jnf Vna Jvyfba, gur pbhfva bs gur erny Yhxr Elqre. Naq, va snpg, gur ivrjvat nhqvrapr oryvrir gung Vna xvyyrq Yhxr. Ohg Vna—abj va uvf sbegvrf, haerpbtavmnoyr, naq univat zbirq gb n pbhagel gung ur pna’g or rkgenqvgrq sebz, vf gur bar gb fnl gung ur chfurq Yhxr—aba-yrgunyyl—naq gura jvgarffrq lbhat Thl xvyy uvz jvgu n pevpxrg ong. Fbhepr: qhqr, gehfg zr.

Ntnva, V qvqa’g oryvrir guvf sbe n frpbaq. Vna Jvyfba svgf gur cebsvyr bs Yhxr’f ivpgvzf. Ur’f oybaq, nobhg gur fnzr ntr, naq frg gb vaurevg n ybg bs zbarl. Abobql xarj ur jnf gurer gung avtug. Gur pbecfr jnf bayl vqragvsvrq nf Yhxr orpnhfr vg jnf jrnevat uvf qvfgvapgvir wnpxrg—zhpu abvfr vf znqr nobhg jul ur jbhyq unir orra jrnevat n wnpxrg ng nyy. Naq yvxr V fnvq, gurer’f ab cnegvphyne rivqrapr gung Thl qvq guvf orlbaq uvf pevpxrg ong orvat hfrq. Thl qbrf abg erzrzore qbvat vg. Gur bayl guvat jr unir gb tb ba vf Vna’f jbeq.

Gur qvfsvtherzrag, gur wnpxrg, gur zrzbel ybff, gur haeryvnoyr jvgarff—vg sryg fb boivbhf gung V jnf fher, ng gur gvzr, vg jnf vagragvbany. Ohg gur rcvybthr qbrfa’g nqqerff guvf cbffvovyvgl. Vafgrnq, Wbanu’f ybat-ybfg-fvfgre er-fhesnprf gb xvyy Thl va ergevohgvba. Znlor vg’f na vafvqr wbxr ba gur cneg bs gur nhgube? Gur vqrn gung gur gehr pevzr qbp jnf zvffvat fbzrguvat boivbhf, naq snvyrq gb fbyir gur pnfr nsgre nyy? Ohg vs gung’f gur pnfr, naq “Vna” qvq fhpprffshyyl trg njnl jvgu zheqre, V srry zhpu jbefr nobhg Erorppn xvyyvat Thl ba uvf orunys.

Yeah, with some googling, I found one other reader on Reddit who had the same takeaway, but it’s not a possibility that is explicitly addressed in the book at all. It’s strange. I was expecting just one more twist, and the book didn’t deliver. Murder in the Family’s format is genuinely original and highly readable, but between the raising of social issues (racial profiling, police brutality) only to undermine them for twist purposes, and the slightly messy third act, I can’t say I came away more satisfied, or with more loose ends tied up, than I would in an actual true crime documentary.