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The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell

Thriller

The Family Remains

by Lisa Jewell

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Quick take

In this thrilling sequel to The Family Upstairs from Lisa Jewell, nothing’s as it seems and everything is connected.

Good to know

  • Illustrated icon, Multiple_Viewpoints

    Multiple viewpoints

  • Illustrated icon, Puzzle

    Puzzle

  • Illustrated icon, International

    International

  • Illustrated icon, Second_in_Series

    Second in series

Synopsis

Early one morning on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene of a gruesome discovery. When Owusu sends the evidence for examination, he learns the bones are connected to a cold case that left three people dead on the kitchen floor in a Chelsea mansion thirty years ago.

Rachel Rimmer has also received a shock—news that her husband, Michael, has been found dead in the cellar of his house in France. All signs point to an intruder, and the French police need her to come urgently to answer questions about Michael and his past that she very much doesn’t want to answer.

After fleeing London thirty years ago in the wake of a horrific tragedy, Lucy Lamb is finally coming home. While she settles in with her children and is just about to purchase their first-ever house, her brother takes off to find the boy from their shared past whose memory haunts their present.

As they all race to discover answers to these convoluted mysteries, they will come to find that they’re connected in ways they could have never imagined.

Content warning

The books contains mentions of sexual assualt.

Free sample

Get an early look from the first pages of The Family Remains.

The Family Remains

PROLOGUE

JUNE 2019

SAMUEL

“Jason Mott?”

“Yes. Here. That’s me.”

I stare down at the young man who stands below me ankle-deep in the mud of the banks of the Thames. He has sandy hair that hangs in curtains on either side of a soft, freckled face. He’s wearing kneehigh rubber boots and a khaki gilet with multiple pockets and is surrounded by a circle of gawping people. I go to him, trying to keep my shoes away from the mud.

“Good morning,” I say. “I’m Detective Inspector Samuel Owusu. This is Saffron Brown from our forensics team.” I see Jason Mott trying very hard not to look as if he is excited to be in the presence of two real-life detectives—and failing. “I hear you have found something. Maybe you could explain?”

He nods eagerly. “Yes. So. Like I said on the phone. I’m a mudlarking guide. Professional. And I was out here this morning with my group and this young lad here”—he points to a boy who looks about twelve years old—“he was poking about and opened up this bag.” He points at a black bin bag sitting on some shingle. “I mean, rule number one of mudlarking is no touching, but this was just sitting there, like someone had just dropped it there, so I guess it was OK for him to open it.”

Although I know nothing of mudlarking rules, I throw the young boy a reassuring look and he appears relieved.

“Anyway. I don’t know, I mean, I’m no forensics expert . . .” Jason Mott smiles nervously at Saffron, and I see him flush a little. “But I thought that they looked like they might be, you know, human bones.”

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Why I love it

I consider myself something of a thriller connoisseur and it’s my firm belief that you’d be hard pressed to chisel out a Mount Rushmore of thriller writers that doesn’t include Lisa Jewell. With The Family Remains, a sequel to her novel The Family Upstairs, Jewell crafts a story that’s equal parts multi-generational drama and intricately-plotted mystery.

When the mummified body of Birdie Dunlop-Evers washes up on the shore of the Thames, DCI Samuel Owusu opens an investigation into a thirty-year-old cold case that will uncover buried connections and personal histories that span years and even continents. In London, Rachel Gold has just embarked on a whirlwind romance with a wealthy, older man that will change the course of her life. Henry Lamb crosses the Atlantic to track Phineas, a guy who doesn’t want to be found and the unwilling object of a cruel teenage obsession. His sister, Lucy, has gone from rags to riches in the blink of an eye. Now on the cusp of finally buying a home for herself and her children, Lucy hightails it to America to hunt down Henry before he catches up to Phineas.

At the center is a large house where unspeakable things occurred decades earlier, a house where Birdie was apparently murdered. But someone moved her body in the last year, just before the house was sold. The question is who.

As a suspense lover, I’ll admit that one of the common criticisms of the genre is that characters are sometimes rendered a tad thin, but Jewell approaches her thrillers as true character studies. Come for the twists, the chilling whodunits, and the jaw-dropping reveals, absolutely, but it’s the finely tuned insight into human psychology and relationships that stick with me.

Member ratings (6,987)

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View all
The Boyfriend
The Last One at the Wedding
Sleep Tight
First Lie Wins
House of Glass
Middle of the Night
Listen for the Lie
A Talent for Murder
Someone in the Attic
One Perfect Couple
Like Mother, Like Daughter
Darling Girls
Kill for Me, Kill for You
Bad Tourists
Murder Road
Daughter of Mine
The Fury
Only if You’re Lucky
The Other Mothers
When I’m Dead
The Soulmate
What Lies in the Woods
She Started It
The Only One Left
Dark Corners
Blacktop Wasteland
All the Dangerous Things
The Only Survivors
The Broken Girls
The Family Game
The Push
We Were Never Here
Things We Do in the Dark
The Golden Couple
The Collective
The Stranger Upstairs
Gone Tonight
Too Good to Be True
The Last Word
You Are Not Alone
Rock Paper Scissors
Not a Happy Family
A Flicker in the Dark
The Last Flight
Reckless Girls
The House Across the Lake
The Wife Upstairs
The Last Thing He Told Me
The Maidens
Everything We Didn't Say
Invisible Girl
The Paris Apartment
You're Invited
The Last Party
Dark Places
Pieces of Her
The Wife Between Us
Sharp Objects
None of This Is True
The Silent Patient
The Winter Sister
The Other Woman
Necessary People
The Family Upstairs
The Night Swim
Girl A
The Hunting Wives
Just Another Missing Person
First Born
The Lies I Tell
Breathless