With their true-crime fascination (or perhaps more accurately described as an obsession), is the Lighthouse Family quirky and eccentric, or are they hiding something much darker?
In her newest thriller, The Family Plot, Megan Collins weaves a thoroughly creepy and wickedly intense mystery-thriller that introduces the reader to a family described by one of its own members as “unnatural”. It doesn’t take too long to start understanding, and agreeing with, that description.
Raised in a secluded mansion on a small island, and home schooled by their mother, whose curriculum primarily focused on famous murders, the Lighthouse children (who were even given names that are related to famous true crime cases) each left home at 18 and are now all adults. The exception is Andy, who disappeared the night of his (and his twin sister Dahlia’s) 16th birthday. Dahlia is our narrator and it is immediately clear how much she has been affected by the years she has been without her missing twin. Though she did leave home, Dahlia has only moved a ferry ride away so that she would always be nearby on the day Andy would return home. Ten years have passed since Andy’s disappearance and Dahlia and her older brother and sister have returned to the island because their father has now passed away.
Collins wastes no time getting the chilling events started and keeps the creepy-factor high as the reader learns more about this strange family, and the family members themselves learn more about each other and some earth-shattering buried secrets. The family who has always been surrounded by true-crime stories suddenly finds themselves living inside a true-crime story of their own.
Dahlia’s older siblings Charles (named for the Lindbergh baby) and Tate (named after Sharon Tate, the most famous victim of Charles Manson and the Manson Family) have different, and rather unusual, methods of dealing with the upheaval they are all faced with, and Dahlia finds their lack of interest in solving this mystery absolutely maddening. While there is a detective involved in the story, Dahlia is the character who truly fills this role, allowing the reader in on every right (and wrong) turn she makes.
The Family Plot has a truly creative and clever setup that propels the reader into this mystery, interesting and unique characters (though some are more fully fleshed out than others), surprising twists and turns, and a satisfying heartfelt conclusion. There is something here for lovers of true mysteries as well as pulse-pounding thrillers.
The Family Plot is available from Amazon, Book Depository, and other good book retailers, like your local bookstore.
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Synopsis | Goodreads
When a family obsessed with true crime gathers to bury their patriarch, horrifying secrets are exposed upon the discovery of another body in his grave in this chilling novel from the author of Behind the Red Door and The Winter Sister .
At twenty-six, Dahlia Lighthouse has a lot to learn when it comes to the real world. Raised in a secluded island mansion deep in the woods and kept isolated by her true crime-obsessed parents, she has spent the last several years living on her own, but unable to move beyond her past—especially the disappearance of her twin brother Andy when they were sixteen.
With her father’s death, Dahlia returns to the house she has avoided for years. But as the rest of the Lighthouse family arrives for the memorial, a gruesome discovery is made: buried in the reserved plot is another body—Andy’s, his skull split open with an ax.
Each member of the family handles the revelation in unusual ways. Her brother Charlie pours his energy into creating a family memorial museum, highlighting their research into the lives of famous murder victims; her sister Tate forges ahead with her popular dioramas portraying crime scenes; and their mother affects a cheerfully domestic façade, becoming unrecognizable as the woman who performed murder reenactments for her children. As Dahlia grapples with her own grief and horror, she realizes that her eccentric family, and the mansion itself, may hold the answers to what happened to her twin.
