The Best Mystery Novels About Dark Family Secrets

Dahlia Lighthouse and her siblings have had a bit of an unconventional childhood. They have been homeschooled by their parents obsessed with true crime, and the history and geography of various serial killers have been part of the curriculum. On their 16th birthday, Dahlia’s twin, Andy, disappears never to be heard from again. Everyone moves away except Dahlia, hoping for Andy’s return. When their father’s death brings them together again, they make a shocking discovery about what happened to Andy, the truth about their family, and the one serial killer their parents forgot to teach them about, “The Blackburn Killer.”

Your immediate family having secrets is something you come to terms with, but what if the secrets belong to the in-laws of your cousin? Noemí is having the time of her life in Mexico City when she is summoned by her cousin, suffering from ill-health to the countryside. When Noemí reaches her cousin, what she sees is a magnificent household, High Place, hiding terrible, horrifying secrets. It falls onto her to get herself and her cousin out in time before the secrets of High Place catch up to them.

Staying silent about your sibling staying out past curfew is one thing, but what if you had to stay silent about your sister leaving behind a trail of dead bodies? Even worse, what if you had to help clean them up because your sister seems to be incapable of understanding how bleach works? It is just as bizarre and traumatic as it sounds, and our author Braithwaite slowly unravels this big story in a thin volume.

If there is one author who understands how a seemingly insignificant moment in a family’s history becomes their defining moment and forever a dark secret, it’s Megan Abbott. In her most recent work, she turns her focus on the Durant sisters. Dara and Maria have been dancers since birth. Together with their parents, they have run The Durant School of Dance. When an accident takes their parents from them, it falls onto the girls to take care of the school. They have kept it all going, but days before the biggest annual performance, a suspicious accident occurs which brings well-kept secrets and feelings to the surface, leading to a breathtaking climax.

Some families hide their secrets never to be found, some work through them through a series of awkward confrontations. But what happens when your father turns those secrets into a book instead that makes you almost infamous? Yup, definitely becomes one for the books. Maggie Holt has lived her entire life in the shadow of the house she escaped with her family 25 years ago and the past that her dad turned into a memoir. Now, given the ownership of the house and putting it up for sale, Maggie has to return back one more time. On her return, the homecoming is anything but sweet. She has to contend with the angry people of the town who are not glad to be part of the famous memoir without their consent, and she learns that her dad might not have been all that transparent about what happened all those nights ago.

Gwendolyn and Estella have always been close, close as sisters. They have relied on each other to navigate their family’s deceitful and twisted games. But, now Gwendolyn lies in a coma, a victim of Estella’s attempt to poison the whole clan.

What instigated this brutal act? Was it the mysterious death of an aunt, an unhappy marriage or the never-ending secrets catching up to them? Set in the opulent world of rising Indonesia. this book tells the story of a family’s fortune, the cost they incurred, and how it all came crashing down.

Johnny Ribkins has been fortunate to make it to 72 years old, but recent developments are putting future birthdays in peril. Johnny’s past is filled with crimes committed with his deceased half-brother Franklin, and together they buried cash and jewelry all over the state of Florida. Strapped for cash in the present, he decides to revisit these sites. Accompanying him is his 13-year-old niece, Eloise, who has secrets of her own. Together Johnny and Eloise take a journey across the roads of America searching for cash, and for meaning in their family history.

This is a transporting historical mystery novel that takes the reader to the Bombay of the 1920s. It tells the story of Captain Jim Agnihotri who is recovering from war wounds in a hospital when he comes across a mysterious case in the newspaper involving the deaths of two girls. When he is approached by the family to look into it, what he finds is a dark web of lies and dark family secrets. This is a book that gives the impression of being breezy but actually harbors a dark truth about the history of colonial Bombay.