A grisly find reveals family tragedies

The Family Remains by Lisa Jewell, Penguin Random House, $37 .. .. .. .. ..

.. .. DI Samuel Owusu is called to a find on a muddy bank in the Thames. A mudlarker on an early morning stroll has found what appears to be a bag of bones. The forensic team discovers pretty quickly that the bones belonged to a young woman. She has been dead for a number of years.

The bag found on the bank has been put there recently. The woman has been murdered, proof of a blunt instrument trauma, but left probably where she had died and just recently her bones been stuffed into a bin bag. It appears that whoever placed the bag there in such an obvious place was either very simple or wanted the bag found.

Some clever sleuthing by DI Samuel leads him to a now derelict but obviously once grand home. Tracing the once occupants at the time, now adults, becomes the thread of the story.

The plot now centres around the occupants. This is as confusing to the reader as it is to DI Samuel who is busy tracking the occupants through newspaper reports from another time.

He discovers that 30 years ago this mansion in Chelsea was the centre of a grisly crime. Three people were found dead in the kitchen and a baby upstairs alone, but recently fed and changed. A suicide pact was suspected.

Child abuse, suicides and further possible murders now make their appearance.

I thought the final wrap up . . . a long letter accepting all blame for not having the courage to speak out earlier, just a little too pat. Apart from that, a readable psychological crime story, not usually my favourite genre, but Lisa Jewell seems to be able to churn them out and appears to have quite a following. She is The New York Times best seller of 20 novels so far. The Family Remains is her most recent.

A clever title for the book. I wonder was a pun intended? —