Spoiler Discussion for Not a Happy Family
This Spoiler Discussion for Not A Happy Family by Shari Lapena will contain:
Not a Happy Family: The Crime
Not a Happy Family: A List of Suspects
Not a Happy Family: Who Was the Murderer?
A Discussion of the Ending of Not a Happy Family
Not a Happy Family: The Crime
The police are investigating the murder of Fred and Sheila Merton, a wealthy couple in their 60s with three grown children. Fred and Sheila spent Easter Sunday having dinner with their three children. Sometime between that dinner and the following Tuesday morning, Fred was stabbed to death and Sheila was strangled.
The police found a recent prescription for Xanax under Sheila’a name. Valuable jewelry is missing from the house. The police think Sheila opened the door for the killer. The police also learn that Fred had terminal cancer, and only a few months to live.
Not a Happy Family: The Suspects:
Catherine, the Merton’s oldest child.
She has a husband, Ted. Driven and perfectionistic, Catherine was upset that Easter dinner when her parents announced they were selling the family home, which she wanted. After dinner, she drove back to talk to her parents, and found her mother’s bodies.
She didn’t call the police because she thought her brother Dan killed her parents. Cameras at the neighbors suggest she left her house around 11:00 pm and returned at 12:40 am. She also stole a favorite pair of earrings off her mother’s body.
Dan, the middle Merton child
He was hoping to take over his father’s company, but his father had no faith in his son’s abilities and sold it. Now Dan is out of work and in financial trouble.
Dan has a wife, Lisa. They drove home after Easter dinner together, but then Dan went out for a drive to clear his head. Witnesses say Dan was gone from t0:00 pm to 1:00 am. Police find a package of disposable coveralls and booties in his garage. Uh-oh!
Jenna, the youngest Merton child
She’s the wild child and works as a sculptor. Jenna’s parents support her financially but don’t approve of her bohemian lifestyle. She has a boyfriend, Jake.
Jenna was the last one to leave the dinner, about an hour later than her siblings. During that time, her father told her he was changing his will.
She has no alibi for the night of the murder. Her aunt Audrey suspects Jenna was the murderer as she remembers her as being violent when angry as a child.
One of her hairs was found in Irena’s car, which was seen outside her parents’ house on the night of the murder, but Jenna insists it could have transferred to Irena when she hugged her after dinner.
Rose Cutter
She is a lawyer and Fred Merton’s illegitimate daughter. She was also Catherine’s close friend back in school.
The Merton kids and Rose all claim they didn’t know they are half-siblings. But Rose’s friend did the Merton’s legal work, and told Rose she was a beneficiary of Fred’s will. Rose is also the reason for Dan’s financial troubles, as she persuaded him to invest some money, which she lost.
Ellen Cutter
Rose’s mother and Audrey’s close friend. She knew from Audrey that her daughter Rose would inherit considerably less money if Fred changed his will.
Audrey
Fred’s sister. She was told by Fred that he was changing his will and leaving her half his fortune. Except he didn’t get around to it. Alibi: She would have been at dinner, but was conveniently home with the flu.
She’s hiding some family secrets, including the fact that Fred killed his own father and staged it to look like suicide. As she’s snooping around about the murders, someone breaks into her house and tries to poison her.
Irena
The housekeeper. After all the Easter dinner arguments, she left the house. She found the bodies, and the carving knife that killed Fred.
She washed the knife and put it back in the wooden block. Irena’s car was seen at the house around the time of the murder, but she insists that everyone knew where she kept her keys. She also has an alibi.
Not a Happy Family: Who was the murderer?
It was Jenna. After the dinner, she drove to Dan’s, snuck into his garage, and took one of his disposable coveralls. Then she drove to Irena’s house, borrowed Irena’s car, then drove back other parents’ house. She put on the coveralls and some extra socks. when her mother answered the door, she strangled her with an electric cord. Her father heard the noise and came downstairs, where she slit his throat and stabbed him. Then she stole her mother’s jewelry. She hid all the evidence: the jewelry, the bloody coveralls and socks, and her parents’ wallets, in a canvas bag, which she buried in a place where a new concrete floor was about to be poured. She also poisoned Audrey’s iced tea.
Not a Happy Family: The Epilogue
Audrey has long suspected Jenna but is extremely frustrated that she can’t prove it. One day when she was following Jenna, she saw her stop along a country road at a house. She asks the woman inside about the new concrete poured in the back of her house. She tells the police, who say they don’t have enough evidence to dig up the concrete. After Audrey receives her inheritance, she buys the house where Jenna buried the evidence.
Spoiler Discussion for Not a Happy Family:
What did you think of Not a Happy Family?
I was guessing up until the end. The characters were not all that well-developed and not very likable, but I honestly had no idea who did it.
What did you think of Audrey as an amateur detective? She suspected Jenna all along, and she was right.
We have a great discussion going about the true crime inspiration of Not a Happy Family, our questions about the unresolved ending, and more. I hope you will join the conversation. If you toggle the bell on (next to the comment box) you will receive an email when someone responds to your comment!
Did Rose go to jail? It was never resolved.
Agree – I am really not a fan of this new trend of mysteries with unresolved endings. This needed an epilogue!
I prefer stories what are more resolved. Nevertheless, it was implied at times that Rose would serve some time, so I am going to assume that she does. Also, Audrey is pretty sure that the evidence is buried under that concrete floor. Although the book leaves it open whether she will simply live in and enjoy that property that she has admired or whether she will pursue the evidence, my belief is that she will have the concrete floor taken up. Her determination all along to find the murderer and proof I think will carry her forward in searching under that floor. Nevertheless, I really wish it had been spelled out more. I always feel disappointed when I end a book that does not tie up all the Loose Ends.
Hi Anne!
YES – the unresolved thriller (or the thriller with a little loose end dropped at the end) seems to be a trend and I’m not a fan. Unless there’s going to be a sequel, I don’t understand the point. And I agree with you 100% that Audrey is going to tear that concrete up – she was a stubborn amateur detective the whole time and I don’t think she’d buy the house just to let the evidence sit there. But we will never know (sob!)
I just finished the book, and I have to say that I was disappointed in it, not just the ending. I’m a fan of Lapena’s but think her other books were somehow better.
These people are all so greedy,
but Jenna didn’t seem so murderous to me. And the police seemed to be
just trying to blame everyone saying this or that was motive. It was a heinous and terrible deed-
Hi Marie,
I agree that the characters were all pretty unlikeable. Maybe she was going for a “Knives Out” kind of vibe. I’m going to try one of her other book as this is my first
Better ending would have been that the dad had organized his own murder and making it look like it could be any of the children or even framing them. It would go along with his cruelty.
Yes! That would have been a good twist!
I was so disappointed in the ending. I even had to Google the ending to make sure I’d read it right. 100% agree Lapena missed a trick by not using your ending
i suspected Irena since the beginning and just disappointed that Jena did it. The most logical killer was Dan. Not the best work from Lapena but I enjoyed the story and it was easy to read. Did not like the detective aptitudes given to Audrey, to me it looked too wise that Audrey thought that Jena buried the incriminatory material under the farm cement on the farm. At the end she also was moved by greed, Also, why Jena did not just burnt the evidence?
Hi Jariz! This is my first book by Lapena – which of her other books did you like the best?
I enjoyed The Couple Next Door. It is a much better read than this book.
Thanks – I did a post ranking all her books here and I agreed with you (mostly!)
Does anyone not notice that there is a 2011 movie called “You’re Next” with pretty much the same exact story line? Down to the artsy youngest child who was unmarried AND also the killer? No originality smh
I haven’t seen that movie but looked it up and it does seem to have some similarities!
I’m confused as to Audrey receiving her inheritance. She was not named in the will. Where did the money come from unless she blackmailed Jenna knowing she likely buried the evidence beneath the building.
You are right – she thought she was in the will, but then we were told she wasn’t. I like your blackmail theory but I wish the book had clarified. Does anyone have another explanation? I’ve returned my book to the library.
She was always in the will, the unchanged one that stood before Fred got a chance to change it with his attorney. She was supposed to get half of the inheritance in the revised one, the one Fred told Jenna about
Thanks, Keyl! Now I remember. He said he was changing it but didn’t. I’ll add that to the plot summary to make it clearer.
What about Audrey’s daughter? The author mentions her twice, so I figured it can’t be an error but then ends the book so fast, I feel like it was. Also, twice I noticed errors when the wrong character’s name was used, which also makes me feel like this was rushed to print.
I agree that I would have liked more explanation at the ending. I returned my book so not sure about Audrey’s daughter but maybe someone else will have a thought on this…
Just finishing the book. Ugh…… I need another recommendation
Did you like it? I just finished a bunch more books with a family theme. The Younger Wife by Sally Hepworth, which comes out next week and am reviewing Monday, takes the typical “guy marries a much younger woman” and sort of turns it on its head. What Happened to the Bennetts by Lisa Scottoline is an everyman vigilante thriller with a family on the run. I’m about to read Nine Lives by Peter Swanson, which just came out, so watch for that review very soon. The most interesting “book club” type book I read was The Christie Affair. If you’re an Agatha Christie fan, it was really interesting. I wasn’t sure about it at first, but ended up really liking it