Book review: Family Lies by Karen Rose

Family Lies by Karen Rose is apparently the 33rd romantic suspense novel written by the American author and fourth in her San Diego series. I was an avid reader of Rose back in the early 2000s when I visited my local library twice weekly. Coincidentally the last book I’ve read of hers, Cheater, was part of this series, though I’d not remembered any of the characters or backstory. I very much liked [both] though and am now keen to read books one and three. For those who aren’t aware Rose writes loosely linked books, often featuring different lead characters with others on the periphery. Here cop Kit McKittrick’s sister Akiko is the focus, though everything unfolds from Kit’s point of view as well as Sam’s, her newish love interest.

About this book

As an infant, Kit McKittrick’s foster sister Akiko was abandoned at a firehouse. Now 32, Akiko has received an unsettling phone call from a woman who says that she knew her birth mother but refuses to divulge any details except in person. Akiko is nervous but also thrilled at the prospect of finally learning about her blood relations.

Kit has a bad feeling about this and insists on accompanying Akiko to meet the woman. Sure enough, as they stand on Mary Sherman’s doorstep, shots are fired and Kit is hit...and inside the house is a corpse: Mary Sherman herself.

Although she’s on medical leave and forbidden to work the case, Kit cannot rest. With police psychologist Sam Reeves, she undertakes a covert investigation into the mysterious Mary Sherman. Was she Akiko’s birth mother? Why did she reach out after all these years? And who had a motive to kill her?

As more bodies pile up, Kit starts to put together the pieces of the frightening puzzle that is Akiko’s birth family, and she’ll come to wonder whether some secrets should stay buried after all.

My thoughts

Rose opens this in 2016 when Kit’s apologising to fellow teen Akiko who’s recently arrived at the foster family’s house, taking the bed that belonged to Kit’s sister Wren who was murdered the year before. We then flick forward to the present when the pair are closely bonded and we learn Kit’s ferocious about protecting those she loves, Akiko included.

The action pretty much starts at the outset of this book with Kit being shot and wounded in what she assumed to be an innocuous visit to Mary Sherman’s house after the recently-dead Mary contacted Akiko claiming to have information about her birth mother. Kit, Sam and fellow police officers look into Mary’s recent movements and discover she’d been meeting with a private detective and had links to Akiko’s sensei and mentor. Discovering the truth becomes increasingly murky when that mentor is badly beaten and a friend and colleague of Akiko is murdered.

Rose offers up a complex plot that makes this book a very dense read. I made a note when I was 28% through the novel that it felt like we were nearing the conclusion… but obviously we weren’t. I read quickly but this took me four nights (unheard of for me). It is long at 500+ pages, but we learn the genesis of [what leads to Mary’s death and all that comes after] both does and doesn’t have direct links to Akiko’s past; and much of what transpires is borne of events that took place decades prior. As a result we dip into gun smuggling, money laundering and the Japanese mafia.

Despite the length of this and the many interrelated plot threads, the characters on offer (and the fact I’d come to care about them) kept me reading and I’m reminded how much I enjoyed Rose’s books. And with this concluding with new evidence relating to Wren’s murder I’m assuming it’ll be her investigation that features in book 5 in this series with Kit’s new partner Detective Meghan Lennox as a key player.

Family Lies by Karen Rose was published by Headline Publishing Group.

I received an electronic copy of this book from the publisher for review purposes.