Spoiler Discussion for The Family Game

Have you read The Family Game by Catherine Steadman and are dying to discuss it? Need a full plot summary of The Family Game, a character list, or the ending explained? You are in the right place. Please join our Spoiler Discussion for The Family Game.

Table of Contents for the Spoiler Discussion for The Family Game:

List of Characters in the Family Game

Full Plot Summary for The Family Game

What was the ending of The Family Game?

Spoiler Discussion for The Family Game

List of Characters in the Family Game

Harriet “Harry” Reed: best-selling novelist

The Holbeck family:

Edward Holbeck: the eldest son in the family after the death of his brother. He is not involved in the family business and runs a tech start-up.

John Livingston Holbeck: Edward’s great-great-great-grandfather and robber baron

Mitzi Holbeck: Edward’s great-grandmother, a German ballerina

Alfred Holbeck: Edward’s great-grandfather

Eleanor Holbeck: Edward’s mother, a former model

Robert Holbeck: Edward’s father

Matilda Holbeck: Edward’s sister

Bobby Holbeck: Edward’s elder brother who died in 2002 by suicide.

Oliver Holbeck: Edward’s younger brother

Fiona: Oliver’s wife

Olivia: Fiona’s niece

Billy, Sam and Tristan: Oliver and Fiona’s young sons

Stuart Holbeck: Edward’s youngest brother

Lila Erikson: Stuart’s girlfriend, a Scandinavian model and actress. She has a son, Milo, from a prior relationship.

Holbeck employees:

Nunu: the family nanny

Marcia: the cook

James: the butler

ThruComm  andEmployees:

Marty Fullman:  COO

Nancy: General Counsel

Other:

Louisa: Harry’s agent

Deonte Hughley: Harry’s police contact

Full Plot Summary for The Family Game

Bestselling novelist Harriet “Harry” met her American fiancé Edward in London and moved to New York to be with him. 

Now that they are engaged, Edward reluctantly introduces her to his eccentric and extremely wealthy family, the Holbecks, an old money family in the Northeast. 

Harry meets Edward’s sister Matilda, who suggests that the family scared off his last girlfriend. 

After accepting an invitation to the Holbeck’s for Thanksgiving, Harry tells Edward that she’s pregnant.

At Thanksgiving, Harry meets Edward’s family. She’s very drawn to his father Robert, who takes her aside and tells her he also lost his parents at a young age. Harry’s parents were killed in a car accident that she survived.

Robert says he has read Harry’s book. He gives her a micro cassette tape and tells her that he’s dictated a story he wants her to listen to.

Harry asks Edward about his brother Bobby, who was mentioned at the dinner. Edward says Bobby was a student at Columbia who died from a “drug interaction.”

Harry goes to find a player for the cassette tape and is certain a man is following her.

She is about to listen to the tape, but Harry gets a call from her publisher that they need her manuscript in two weeks. She goes into seclusion to finish the book.

Fiona calls to invite Harry and Edward to Krampusnacht, a German tradition that the family observes. Harry agrees, then looks up the tradition and finds that the Krampus is a mythical demon, the evil brother of St. Nicholas, who punishes misbehaving children.

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Tape Part 1:

Harry listens to the tape and is shocked that it is Robert’s recollection of Bobby’s death. Bobby jumped or fell from a building, with only a young blond woman as witness. Robert suggests that he killed the woman. He addresses Harry, telling her that the Holbeck family will protect itself.

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Harry looks for information on Bobby’s death, convinced she’s still being followed. She finds a photo with a picture of the Holbeck’s former nanny, Samantha. 

Harry locates Samantha through Facebook and they agree to meet. 

Krampunacht is weird and terrifying. All the children and Harry have to roam the house looking for an evergreen stick while trying to evade a man dressed as a demon.  Harry and Billy hide upstairs. Olivia finds them and tells Harry that the clue to where the Evergreen is hidden is in the letters of Harriet’s name: hereditary. Harry finds the evergreen and wins the game.

Harry meets Samantha, who tells her that she and all the employees have signed an NDA.  But Samantha does say that Bobby jumped after being put under intense pressure by his father. But Samatha also reveals that she was not the blond woman who was present at Bobby’s death. It was Bobby’s college girlfriend. Samantha warns Harry to be careful.

Harry decides to search through Edward’s things to find clues about Bobby’s girlfriend. Her name is Lucy and she went missing in 2002.

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Tape Part 2:

Robert confesses to killing a second girl, Gianna. Harry believes she was a girlfriend of Edward’s at MIT. Then he accuses Harry of killing the drunk driver who was responsible for the car accident that killed her parents. Harry was only eleven. Robert seems to suggest that she caused an explosion that blew up his car.

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Edward returns from a business trip and says that someone wants to buy his company for 2.8 billion. He also says that they are invited to the Hydes, the Holbeck country house, for Christmas. 

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Tape Part 3:

Robert says that Bobby jumped. Lucy had to die. Then Alison. then Gianna, Aliza, Melissa. 

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Harry researches the women. Gianna was thought to have died of a drug overdose and Alison by suicide. Aliza was an artist and Harry believes she was in love with Matilda. Melissa was Stuart’s personal assistant. She seems to possibly be alive, but Harry decides that someone is using the pandemic to make it seem like she is.

Before she leaves for The Hydes, Harry writes notes to her agent, to her police source, and to her lawyer. In the note to her lawyer she confesses her murder.  Then she emails her publisher and tells them the story of Edward, pretending it’s going in her book.

Edward comes home and finds the tape recorder. He tries to listen but says the tape is blank. Did he erase it, or did Harry?

They drive to The Hydes, which Edward tells her is named for the hunting hides front the property. They announce to the family that they are expecting a baby girl.

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The Tape Part 4:

Robert says that the family plays a game on Christmas Eve and that clues lead each player to a present. He also suggests that Bobby’s room at the Hydes remains as it was.

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Edward teaches Harry how to get out of the hedge maze on the grounds.  Harry asks him to show her the hides.

The game begins. Each player receives a clue in an envelope that will lead to two more clues to the location of their Christmas gift. There is only one winner. The first one to find their gift gets it and the rest of the family get nothing. Each gift is unique and something that each person needs. All the gifts are revealed at the end. 

Edward tries to talk Harry out of playing. 

Everyone opens their first clue reads it and throws it into the fire.

Harry’s first clue leads her to Edward’s childhood bedroom.

The second clue leads her to a well outside. 

She runs into Fiona, who offers to make her secret go away if Fiona or Oliver wins. All Harry has to do is get an abortion and not have children with Edward. Fiona tells Harry that since Edward is the eldest, his oldest child will inherit everything. Harry tells Fiona that she guesses Fiona got pregnant by the wrong brother then.

Harry lowers herself down into the well and finds the third clue. Her present will be on the neck of a body in the well.

She finds the body of Melissa, the last victim, with a diamond star necklace around her neck. She takes the necklace and starts running toward the house when she trips over Fiona’s boot near the maze.

Harry decides to look for Fiona. She finds a freshly dug grave and sees something moving under the dirt. It’s Fiona, but she’s dead. 

She calls Ed and tells him that something terrible is happening. They agree to meet in their room. 

Suddenly Fiona realizes that Edward is a murderer. He killed Bobby, the five women, and then Fiona.

Harry sneaks back in the house and finds the two employees, Anya and Sylvia, drugged. Matilda and Eleanor are in the kitchen with the gas oven on, drugged as well. She rouses them, gives them her phone and tells them to go to one of the hunting hides.

Harry decides to find Robert. But she finds Stuart, beat up and drugged. Just then someone hits her in the head.

She wakes up on the floor to the smell of gas. Oliver is next to her, dead. 

Edward is there. He always wanted to find someone like himself (a killer?) to marry. He didn’t mean to kill Bobby. Edward was slipping Bobby Aderall as a way to force him to step away from the company. He killed Lucy because she knew what he’d done. He told Alison and Gianna the truth and then killed them to protect his secret.

What was the ending of The Family Game?

Edward asks her if she wants to be with him. She doesn’t, and he sees that. 

Harry sees her present under the tree: a bottle of lighter fluid. She grabs it. Edward shoots his father in the leg. While he’s reloading the gun, she knocks him over and sprays him with lighter fluid. The flames from the fireplace engulf him. Then she picks up the gun he dropped and shoots him.

Robert and Harry run outside. She tells him to go find Eleanor and Matilda while she goes back inside for Stuart. (What about Anya and Sylvia?)

Stuart isn’t where she last saw him, so she assumes he left. She saves Anya and Sylvia.

Baby Iris is born. Most of The Hydes burned down. Harry insisted that Fiona’s and Oliver’s boys got a trust fund. The fire was blamed on a gas leak. Iris will inherit everything.

Spoiler Discussion for The Family Game

What did you think of The Family Game?

I was SO into it while I was trying to figure out what was going on. And overall I did find it a fun read.

But by Tape #2 and #3 I had questions.

In Tape #2, Robert suggests that an eleven year-old girl could be convicted of the murder of the drunk driver who killed her parents on basically no evidence. That was implausible.

Then Tape #3 suggests that every person killed had some close personal connection to Edward. At that point, I realized that Robert must be a red herring and that Edward must be a serial killer.

What did you think of Edward?

He wasn’t the most well-developed character. He was a busy, absent fiance. Then he’s obviously the killer. When he confesses he says he killed Alison and Gianna because they knew too much, but he had confessed to them. The book seemed to suggest he was just a serial killer looking for love, which was a bit strange.

What did you think of Harry?

I was side-eyeing her as soon as she was thinking dirty thoughts about her father-in-law to be. Really, Harry? But she was smart and tough.

Why do you think Robert couldn’t stop his own son?

This was the main plothole to me. Robert is super connected and powerful. He’s able to stage the Christmas massacre as a tragic accident. So why couldn’t he just murder Edward and stage it as an accident. He was hoping that Harry would help him kill Edward?

Thanks for stopping by my Spoiler Discussion for The Family Game! Tell me all your thoughts in the comments!