Thrillers & Suspense
![Gytha Lodge - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_B00699BG6I.jpg)
A Killer in the Family: A Novel (Jonah Sheens Detective Series)
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 forest, 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.
After much debate, she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website. 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. . . .
When the police found the first body, left on a bonfire in the forest, 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.
After much debate, she decides to upload her DNA to an ancestry website. 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. . . .
Editorial Reviews
Praise for A Killer in the Family
"A darkly deceptive, twisting, masterful mystery. Gytha Lodge should be on every crime fiction fan's must read list."-Chris Whitaker
"Ancestry searches can bring families together, or reveal long-buried secrets, as Irish single mother Aisling Cooley learns all too well in the riveting latest from Lodge . . . . Heartfelt family drama and thundering suspense elevate the ripped-from-the-headlines plot. This continues Lodge's winning streak."-Publishers Weekly
Praise for Gytha Lodge
"Gytha Lodge is a consummate storyteller."-Erin Kelly
"Literally makes you hold your breath, then gasp out loud."-Val McDermid, on She Lies in Wait
"A dark, deep, terrific thriller."-Nicci French, on She Lies in Wait
"Edge-of-the-seat suspense to the final scene."-Jeffery Deaver, on She Lies in Wait
"A darkly deceptive, twisting, masterful mystery. Gytha Lodge should be on every crime fiction fan's must read list."-Chris Whitaker
"Ancestry searches can bring families together, or reveal long-buried secrets, as Irish single mother Aisling Cooley learns all too well in the riveting latest from Lodge . . . . Heartfelt family drama and thundering suspense elevate the ripped-from-the-headlines plot. This continues Lodge's winning streak."-Publishers Weekly
Praise for Gytha Lodge
"Gytha Lodge is a consummate storyteller."-Erin Kelly
"Literally makes you hold your breath, then gasp out loud."-Val McDermid, on She Lies in Wait
"A dark, deep, terrific thriller."-Nicci French, on She Lies in Wait
"Edge-of-the-seat suspense to the final scene."-Jeffery Deaver, on She Lies in Wait
Readers Top Reviews
annabel
Very well written, really enjoyed it. Will definitely read the next book by this author.
Barb
Another blinder from Gytha....please hurry up with the next instalment. If you've never read Gytha Lodge, you don't know what your musding
dieleseratzMrs. D. J
and one big, big secret of mine."(S.37) Achtung, Spoiler! Dies war das erste Buch der Autorin, das ich las und leider legte ich gerade das Kindle mit sehr gemischten Gefühlen zur Seite. Die Handlung klang sehr spannend, aber die Ausarbeitung war alles andere als mitreißend, eher schon zäh, verwirrend und sehr langatmig. Die Verwicklungen sind extrem. Zig junge Männer, die evtl adoptiert wurden, alte Männer, die ein Verhältnis mit der gleichen Frau hatten. Personen, die ihren Namen änderten, die plötzlich einen neuen Bruder haben, einen verschollenen Sohn. Oder ist der Sohn ein Bruder? Der Onkel doch kein Onkel? Die Autorin übertreibt es hier gewaltig. Man blickt zeitweilig überhaupt nicht mehr durch und die Morde werden paradoxerweise zur Nebensache. Irgendwann nervte alles nur noch. Die Detectives haben natürlich auch wieder jede Menge privater Probleme, das scheint ein ungeschriebenes Gesetz in britischen Thrillern zu sein- genau wie der Hang zum übermäßigern Alkoholgenuss, so auch in diesem Krimi. Fazit: Viel zu konstruiert, zu viele Zufälle und verwirrende, unglaubwürdige Verwicklungen. Muss man nicht gelesen haben!
hamneta
I read all books of the series so far - with every book I like the characters even more. An easy and gripping read! I wait for the next one in the series…
Short Excerpt Teaser
1
January 1
He'd watched them ever since that first fire back in October. Followed their little team from scene to scene as they tried to unpick it all.
He'd been with them, in an ironic sort of camaraderie, while they'd walked it over and attempted to work out who had been burned to ashes in the forest. Though none of them had seen him. He was good at being invisible when he wanted to be.
He'd been with them, invisibly, for most of the three months since. Always watching them. Always unseen. He'd followed them to the victim's house, and on visits to bars and shops and cafés. He'd followed them as they'd gone to interview possible suspects, and smiled to himself as he'd seen them leave with expressions of frustration.
He hadn't just watched them, of course. He'd read about all of it, in print and online. He'd known the moment they'd identified the victim as forty-six-year-old Jacqueline Clarke. He'd read all about her lonely life in Brockenhurst, as viewed through the eyes of a journalist.
He'd cut around each photograph of striking, sandy-haired Jacqueline and kept it. And each photograph of the team too.
One of the local press had used the term "Bonfire Killer" in a follow-up piece, and even though it hadn't been picked up elsewhere, he'd liked it and started using it privately.
Two weeks after Jacqueline Clarke had been found, he'd watched them rush to a second pyre, this one still burning. He'd seen them douse it, even though it was abundantly clear that there was no body on it this time. And then he'd smiled to himself at their confusion. Their consternation.
He knew what they were thinking. He was too far away to hear most of their conversation, but he could read their expressions in the harsh lights that arrived with them.
They think it might happen again, he told himself. They're expecting another Jacqueline Clarke now. Another Bonfire Killer victim.
The little team had begun to travel farther afield as they tried to tie in other crimes, and he'd followed them. Many of them had been laughably dissimilar, but as some of them had picked over the burnt remnants of a house in West Gradley, where a woman of Jacqueline Clarke's age had died, he'd enjoyed their angst. Their uncertainty about whether to investigate it further.
Their agitation had been clearer still at the next two sites. Two more fires, each without a victim. And at each one their movements had been faster, like ants disturbed by a stick. He'd found it all amusing.
The thing he hadn't expected to feel, however, was an increase in his own sense of camaraderie toward them. Somehow, in watching them all work, he'd developed an odd sort of affection. For DCI Jonah Sheens and his wry thoughtfulness. For DS Domnall O'Malley and his warmth.
Maybe even for DS Ben Lightman, whose model-handsome looks had produced an immediate revulsion in him. As though he were some Hollywood actor pretending to be a police officer. He'd hated him on sight.
But it had been hard to keep up the same level of distaste when he'd seen Ben Lightman pull on Wellingtons and wade through mud, and then stand in drizzle for an hour and a half at an extinguished pyre. That hour and a half of standing in the rain was an experience the two of them had shared, despite Ben Lightman not knowing it.
And then, of course, there was Juliette. He thought of her as Juliette, not her title. She was different. So easy to watch. To be drawn to. He found himself watching her even when the action was elsewhere. When more interesting things were going on.
Things had shifted for him after the third pyre, too. He'd left before the team, heading back to the four-by-four he'd hired for the occasion, using a fake driver's license. He'd parked it farther up the track, to be out of sight, and as he walked back to it he'd passed Juliette's little Nissan Micra, which she'd parked off to the side of the poor-quality road.
The Micra was clearly, profoundly, and irretrievably stuck in the mud. Something Juliette was going to discover when she tried to drive it away.
He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. She'd be making that discovery at close to one a.m., at a guess.
He went to the car and tried the door. It was, he realized with a shiver of excitement, unlocked.
A strange, thrilling thought had run through him. He could actually help her. He could help Juliette. Do something kind for her. And if he did it right, she might suspect that it had been him, but never know for sure.
He'd glanced back toward the lights of the crime scene, way back down the track beyond a locked gate. They were half a mile away, and most of the for...
January 1
He'd watched them ever since that first fire back in October. Followed their little team from scene to scene as they tried to unpick it all.
He'd been with them, in an ironic sort of camaraderie, while they'd walked it over and attempted to work out who had been burned to ashes in the forest. Though none of them had seen him. He was good at being invisible when he wanted to be.
He'd been with them, invisibly, for most of the three months since. Always watching them. Always unseen. He'd followed them to the victim's house, and on visits to bars and shops and cafés. He'd followed them as they'd gone to interview possible suspects, and smiled to himself as he'd seen them leave with expressions of frustration.
He hadn't just watched them, of course. He'd read about all of it, in print and online. He'd known the moment they'd identified the victim as forty-six-year-old Jacqueline Clarke. He'd read all about her lonely life in Brockenhurst, as viewed through the eyes of a journalist.
He'd cut around each photograph of striking, sandy-haired Jacqueline and kept it. And each photograph of the team too.
One of the local press had used the term "Bonfire Killer" in a follow-up piece, and even though it hadn't been picked up elsewhere, he'd liked it and started using it privately.
Two weeks after Jacqueline Clarke had been found, he'd watched them rush to a second pyre, this one still burning. He'd seen them douse it, even though it was abundantly clear that there was no body on it this time. And then he'd smiled to himself at their confusion. Their consternation.
He knew what they were thinking. He was too far away to hear most of their conversation, but he could read their expressions in the harsh lights that arrived with them.
They think it might happen again, he told himself. They're expecting another Jacqueline Clarke now. Another Bonfire Killer victim.
The little team had begun to travel farther afield as they tried to tie in other crimes, and he'd followed them. Many of them had been laughably dissimilar, but as some of them had picked over the burnt remnants of a house in West Gradley, where a woman of Jacqueline Clarke's age had died, he'd enjoyed their angst. Their uncertainty about whether to investigate it further.
Their agitation had been clearer still at the next two sites. Two more fires, each without a victim. And at each one their movements had been faster, like ants disturbed by a stick. He'd found it all amusing.
The thing he hadn't expected to feel, however, was an increase in his own sense of camaraderie toward them. Somehow, in watching them all work, he'd developed an odd sort of affection. For DCI Jonah Sheens and his wry thoughtfulness. For DS Domnall O'Malley and his warmth.
Maybe even for DS Ben Lightman, whose model-handsome looks had produced an immediate revulsion in him. As though he were some Hollywood actor pretending to be a police officer. He'd hated him on sight.
But it had been hard to keep up the same level of distaste when he'd seen Ben Lightman pull on Wellingtons and wade through mud, and then stand in drizzle for an hour and a half at an extinguished pyre. That hour and a half of standing in the rain was an experience the two of them had shared, despite Ben Lightman not knowing it.
And then, of course, there was Juliette. He thought of her as Juliette, not her title. She was different. So easy to watch. To be drawn to. He found himself watching her even when the action was elsewhere. When more interesting things were going on.
Things had shifted for him after the third pyre, too. He'd left before the team, heading back to the four-by-four he'd hired for the occasion, using a fake driver's license. He'd parked it farther up the track, to be out of sight, and as he walked back to it he'd passed Juliette's little Nissan Micra, which she'd parked off to the side of the poor-quality road.
The Micra was clearly, profoundly, and irretrievably stuck in the mud. Something Juliette was going to discover when she tried to drive it away.
He looked at his watch. It was almost midnight. She'd be making that discovery at close to one a.m., at a guess.
He went to the car and tried the door. It was, he realized with a shiver of excitement, unlocked.
A strange, thrilling thought had run through him. He could actually help her. He could help Juliette. Do something kind for her. And if he did it right, she might suspect that it had been him, but never know for sure.
He'd glanced back toward the lights of the crime scene, way back down the track beyond a locked gate. They were half a mile away, and most of the for...
