The Family Remains (The Family Upstairs #2) by Lisa Jewell
Genre: Mystery, Psychological thriller, Domestic drama
Read: 4th July 2022
Published: 21st July 2022
★★★★★ 4.5 stars (rounded up)
DESCRIPTION:
LONDON. Early morning, June 2019: on the foreshore of the river Thames, a bag of bones is discovered. Human bones.
DCI Samuel Owusu is called to the scene and quickly sends the bag for forensic examination. The bones are those of a young woman, killed by a blow to the head many years ago.
Also inside the bag is a trail of clues, in particular the seeds of a rare tree which lead DCI Owusu back to a mansion in Chelsea where, nearly thirty years previously, three people lay dead in a kitchen, and a baby waited upstairs for someone to pick her up.
The clues point forward too to a brother and sister in Chicago searching for the only person who can make sense of their pasts.
Four deaths. An unsolved mystery. A family whose secrets can't stay buried for ever ...
PREPARE TO BE HOOKED.
MY THOUGHTS:
It's the sequel that fans have been waiting for! The next chapter to the highly acclaimed spine-tingling and creepy "The Family Upstairs" and which needs no introduction. However, do not fear if you have not read the first book - though I do recommend it as it is thoroughly dark and sinister and creepy - as THE FAMILY REMAINS is written in such a way that it can be read as a standalone.
It's been three years since "The Family Upstairs" was published which means it's been three years since I've read it; which means I've probably read over 600 books since then so I'm hardly likely to remember every nitty gritty detail...but I do recall some. And as I read this book, there were some aspects that took me right back to 16 Cheyne Walk and I could picture that gothic mansion in Chelsea, with its view over the Thames to Battersea, as if I had lived there myself...or at the very least, read the book yesterday. If I had the time I may well have re-read the book but it didn't matter in any case because the story was so well written as well as the bringing in of two new characters that it felt like a completely new story with a twenty five year old cold case at its core.
There was so much left unsaid at the end of "The Family Upstairs" with so many of us wondering what happened to the Lamb children after 16 Cheyne Walk? I can't remember how the book ended but Lisa Jewell has cleverly expanded on their lives in between where it all ended to where they are now. But she has added a new perspective to the story and a new mystery that is very closely linked to the old mysteries left behind.
Beginning in June 2019, a bag of skeletal remains washes up on the banks of the River Thames that was discovered by a somewhat enthusiastic mudlarker. Not quite sure what a mudlarker is...it sound more like a bird than anything else...lol And enter dogged but very likeable DI Samuel (not Sam) Owusu who is called in to investigate the discovery. And thus opens a can of worms dating back to the mid-90s and the house of horrors in which innocent, malnourished and tortured children had escaped before the triple suicide of their parents with their leader and a crying baby, Serenity Lamb, were discovered.
Then we step back in time by about a year to July 2018 and Rachel Rimmer is awoken by a phone call from French police to inform her that her husband Michael has been found dead in the basement of his Antibes home. As he was stabbed they are treating his death as murder but there are few leads as to who may responsible. So how does his death link to the discovery of decades of human remains fished out of the Thames?
To tell this story accurately and to build the bigger picture, the author takes us back yet again to 2016 when Rachel met Michael and the courtship that followed resulting in a whirlwind marriage. This part of the story unfolds gradually in alternating chapters up until Michael's demise.
Meanwhile, in between the present day 2019 and three years prior, we meet a grown up Lucy who now has two young children and has recently moved in with her now grown up, yet still slightly obsessed, brother Henry. We are also introduced to Libby Jones who was that defenceless little baby Serenity left in her cot once everyone else had escaped or died. She was adopted and had a loving home and has only just recently reconnected with her birth mother, Lucy. There's a story there, which unfolded in the first book but readers' memories are refreshed with the circumstances in this thrilling sequel.
And then there is Phineas. He was the god that Henry adored and aspired to. Since escaping 16 Cheyne Walk two decades ago, he has kept himself under the radar living a quiet life and doing what he loves. Yet when he gets wind of a planned family reunion, he panics and escapes yet again before they can track him down. But fragile and lonely Henry has other plans...to find Phin at all costs. But what does he have planned for the reunion he has in mind?
Yes, there is a lot going on in this book but each of the stories are connected and are expertly woven together with a skillful hand. The alternating timelines that go back and forth in the beginning may seem overwhelming but you soon pick up who is who and what is what. My only complaint with this is that with each chapter a header should have been included to indicate whose narrative it was as it wasn't always clear until a little way into the chapter. Only Samuel's was titled but I feel everyone else should have been also. Having said that, aside from Samuel, it is only Henry that has a first person voice with everyone else in the third person. It kind of made him seem a little more human or more of a villain...who knows? One is never quite sure what to expect with Henry. But after the childhood those children had to endure, it is not at all surprising.
I must note that I did find one aspect a little far fetched in that Lucy's son Marco took on the role of someone senior in years. I don't mean because of his upbringing but the way in which the conversation between he and Kris Doll in Chicago ensued - it was like two adults conversing when in fact Marco is only 11 years old. And Lucy sat back and let Marco lead the conversation in their attempts to track down the elusive Henry who had skipped town on the trail of the even more elusive Phineas. I just found it a little far fetched.
THE FAMILY REMAINS is not a mystery or thriller as such. Yes, there is a murder investigation as well as the death of Michael Rimmer in France woven into the story, it is more of a family drama with some loose ends that need tying up. What this book gives readers is the closure that "The Family Upstairs" didn't.
A dark and intense read, THE FAMILY REMAINS is compelling and addictive from the very first page and is bursting with trauma, abuse, murder, rape, blackmail as well as exceptional story-telling where every thread are expertly woven together. And above all, closure.
Lisa Jewell is an exceptional writer with her ability to weave clever twists into intricate plots with multiple timelines and THE FAMILY REMAINS simply shines in this regard. I was almost sad to leave them behind. And although this is the end of the line for these characters, I can still see another story blossoming at the end. But to do so would probably spoil the enigma so it is best left as it is.
I thoroughly enjoyed THE FAMILY REMAINS far more than I thought I would. I loved "The Family Upstairs" but this one was a little more diverse. Not better, just different.
I would like to thank #LisaJewell, #NetGalley and #CenturyPublishingUK for an ARC of #TheFamilyRemains in exchange for an honest review.
MEET THE AUTHOR:
She worked for the fashion chain Warehouse for three years as a PR assistant and then for Thomas Pink, the Jermyn Street shirt company for four years as a receptionist and PA. She started her first novel, Ralph’s Party, for a bet in 1996. She finished it in 1997 and it was published by Penguin books in May 1998. It went on to become the best-selling debut novel of that year.
She has since written a further nine novels, as is currently at work on her eleventh.
She now lives in an innermost part of north London with her husband Jascha, an IT consultant, her daughters, Amelie and Evie and three pets. She claims to love the dog best.
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