Title: The Den
Author: Cara Reinard
Publisher: Thomas and Mercer
Pages: 336
My GoodReads Rating: ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In the Prologue, we meet an unnamed person, a woman, whose life is in danger. By the next morning, the omniscient narrator tells us, she will be dead.
The wealthy Fox family have all gathered together at a party to raise funds for a dementia charity in honour of Simone Fox, the matriarch, who is in an advanced stage. The four grown-up children, greedy Christian, responsible Valerie, drug addicted Jeremy and irresponsible and wayward Lucinda, are all in attendance.
When their father, Stefan Fox, collapse at the party and ends up in a critical condition, the children are told about the terms of the trust, called the Den, which is supposed to kick into effect in the event of Stefan’s demise. These terms offer a sum of over $10 million to be divided equally among the children. Should one of the children predecease their father, the share of the dead child is to be divided among the surviving siblings.
The siblings have been raised by their detestable, philandering father to be fiercely competitive. What might such a mouth-wateringly tempting legacy do to the relationship of the already embattled siblings? Would one of them be prepared to kill for more money?
The story in written in the 3rd person limited past tense PoVs of Valerie, Lucinda and Marian, three major female characters.
The action takes place over four days. Right in Chapter 1, the omniscient narrator introduces us to all the major players.
The book held my attention. It was paced right, and all the characters had a role to play in the action. The story moved on to the denouement in a manner that was both consistent and believable.
Reading the book, I had a certain impression of how the plot might turn out, but that’s not how things rolled. The mystery isn’t that airtight. It’s not hard to figure out who might be responsible.
What I found more interesting were the family dynamics, the memories of the past which are fed to us in small nuggets of flashbacks.
The extent of the dysfunction in the Fox family hits us hard, and convicts us to think about how we might have behaved in similar circumstances. It forces us to think about how love and pain are so inextricably linked in families, The nature of families is such that resentments and grievances fester and grow. And yet, sometimes the most tragic circumstances show that love never truly dies.
(I read this book on NetGalley. Thank you to the author, the publisher and NetGalley.)
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