Girlfriend’s rich family filled with dark secrets

Patrick is nervous about spending Hogmanay — New Year’s — with his girlfriend’s wealthy family in the Scottish Highlands. He fears the Grants will wonder why their beautiful Holly has picked an amateur filmmaker and delivery driver for a boyfriend. However, he soon learns that every family member has dark secrets, turning the holiday weekend into a time for murder, not celebration.

One of the Family is British writer Mark Edwards’ latest psychological thriller. A bestselling author, he’s written over 20 novels, including his early collaborations with Louise Voss.

During their drive to the Grants’ vacation home, Patrick asks Holly if she’s anxious about introducing him to her father, Charles, and siblings Miranda and Lewis. She assures him they’ll accept him despite the huge divide in their economic circumstances and lifestyles. Charles heads a technology company that he’s built into a major success over the years. Miranda’s husband Zack is Charles’ right-hand man at Gravitas.

Holly and her siblings are on tenterhooks — not about adding Patrick to their family gathering, but rather having their first meeting with Charles’ new and much younger fiancée, Jasmine. Charles has been widowed for many years after losing his wife to cancer when their children were teens. This is the first time he’s been seriously involved with another woman, and his children are suspicious — especially since Jasmine was working as a hotel receptionist when Charles met her on a business trip to Miami.

“I need to be happy for him. But I’m still struggling to believe it,” Holly says. “He goes away to Florida, which was out of character as it was… But off to Miami he trots, and the next thing we know he’s met some American woman and they’re engaged. I can’t get my head round it.”

When Charles and Jasmine arrive, Holly, Miranda and Lewis are stunned to discover that Jasmine bears an uncanny resemblance to their late mother Elizabeth — tall with long red hair, green eyes and a gap between her front teeth. “Jasmine doesn’t just look a bit like our mother. She’s like her identical twin,” Miranda tells Patrick.

Mixed in with the Grant family dynamics are references to the family’s troubled past in the nearby village of Applecross. Although close to death, Elizabeth insisted the family spend Hogmanay together for the last time in 2006. A young local man was found dead in a cave on that New Year’s Eve after drinking and drugging with his sister Morag and Holly and Lewis. His mother Brenda, who runs the village pub, believes her son Jimmy’s death wasn’t accidental, and that possibly Lewis killed him. The villagers are also resentful over Charles’ broken promise to boost the village’s economy by turning an abandoned mansion into an arts centre to be named after Elizabeth.

Patrick is intrigued to hear about a young British man whose frozen body was found in the area. There was no reason for him to be there, and his death is a mystery that Patrick feels might make an interesting subject for his next film.

With tensions already running high, the drama is amped up when Lewis insists on taking Jasmine to the cave containing the historic Serpent Stone — the same cave where Jimmy died. As snow begins falling, creating treacherous driving conditions and isolating Applecross, Patrick acts on his uneasy suspicions and fearing for Jasmine’s safety, he follows Lewis and Jasmine into the dark cave.

Edwards’ skill at adding many unexpected plot twists makes One of the Family an addictive read — perfect for a vacation weekend this summer.

Andrea Geary is a freelance writer in Selkirk.