I Just Read About That…

[READ: June, 2022] How to Kill Your Family

This looked like the perfect book to read over Fathers Day weekend.

But it’s not an instruction manual for the average person.  No indeed, the reason Grace Bernard is planning to kill her family is twofold

Her mother died when she was young.  She learned while she was growing up that her biological father Simon wanted nothing to do with her (or her mother).  He promised them the world, because he pretty much owned the world.  He was part of a very wealthy family who bought and sold companies on a whim.  He was also very publicly (un)happily married with a child and this affair with Grace’s mother could not go public.

As the book opens, Grace is in Limehouse prison.  Ironically, even though she has already killed people, she is in prison for a murder that she did not actually commit–and had no intention of committing.

Grace is surprisingly, hilariously, above everyone else.    Her cellmate Kelly is pretty trashy.  She runs scams online.  She frequently gets caught, but she’s right back out there to do it again.  She drives Grace crazy.  And Grace looks down on Kelly and everyone like her–there’s some really funny lines of abject dismissal in the book:

She’s attractive, is Kelly. Big pouty lips, which I suspect are the result of cheap filler but look all right from a distance, and lots of red hair.  Sadly, her limited intelligence means she was easy to find when a man finally plucked up the courage to stop sending her money and contacted the police.  She’d had the money sent to her boyfriend’s account, the stupid cow, and has wound up doing an eighteen month stretch as a result.  Not an elegant crime, I warrant you, but I have no sympathy for her victims either. If you are delusional enough to believe that anyone wants to see a grainy iPhone picture of your flaccid little friend, you deserve to get bled for it.

Grace has spent much of her young adult life learning about her father’s family and the best way to kill them all off.  She had pulled herself out of poverty by working hard (all in her goal to kill her family).  Although she had a little help from family friends, the Latimers.  This family took Grace in when her mother died and treated her (almost) like one of their own kids.  Grace was best friends with their son Jimmy. There was the possibility of something happening between them but it never actually did,  It almost did a few times, but they remained steadfast friends instead.

Until one big thing tore them apart.  But that comes later.

First is the murdering.  She starts with the grandparents–this one is fairly easy to do and is completely untraceable.  Although she does take a moment to gloat at them (they are the worst).

She had to go after a couple of uncles, too.  They aren’t really guilty of anything against her, but she needs to make sure that she is the beneficiary of the money.  So, even though one is pretty harmless, he still has to go.  The other guy is horrible, and she takes some pleasure in that one.

She winds up getting a job for one of her father’s clothing companies which gives her something of an insider access.  She gets invited to the family holiday party, for instance.  This inside info helps her plot the murders of the people even closer to Simon.

Much of the book is told in flashback–Grace is relating her life story to sell the rights.  But as the story reaches its ends, she is hoping to get out of jail on appeal for her false imprisonment.

But as she is about to resume her golden plans, a few things happen that change her perspective on everything.  She had underestimated quite a few people.   Plus, there seems to be another person with a similar plan to her own….

I really enjoyed this story a lot, and of course, with a cover like that it’s fun to read in public.