I’m not one for dark novels but after reading How To Kill Your Family by Bella Mackie my annual tally stands at two. Hardly remarkable if I’d read one hundred books but as it’s only my fifteenth this year, that’s more noteworthy. Are my tastes changing? Or is it a case of spacing them out between less gruesome ones? That’s not to say everything I consume is sunshine and flowers. What’s an excellent novel without conflict, tension, and an unexpected twist or two?
But enough analysis, let’s get back to Bella Mackie’s debut novel
My mam recommended it. And given the title, I did wonder if that was a good thing. It almost went on holiday, one more book crammed into an already full rucksack. However, as I was spending a week with my in-laws, I feared my choice might give out the wrong signals! So, after a slight delay to proceedings, I eagerly entered the world of villainous Grace Bernard.
And a first for me
I do believe How To Kill Your Family is the only novel where I’ve wanted the protagonist to fail. I certainly wasn’t tucked up on the sofa hoping this ice-cold serial killer was going to get away with murder.
In a stroke of genius, Mackie introduces us to Grace as she’s languishing in Limehouse Prison for a crime she didn’t commit. Oh, how I smirked at the irony. And as Grace frustratingly awaits her appeal date, progressing at the speed of a snail sliming its way up a windowpane, she regales us with her story of wiping the Artemis clan off the face of the earth.
‘I feel somewhat sad that nobody will ever know about the complex operation I undertook. Getting away with it is highly preferable, of course, but perhaps when I’m long gone, someone will open an old safe and find this confession. The public would reel. After all, almost nobody else in the world can possibly understand how someone at the tender age of 28, can have calmly killed six members of her family. And then happily carried on with the rest of their life, never to regret a thing.’
So why has a young woman transformed into a cold-blooded murderer? Easy – revenge. Or more specifically, to avenge her dearly departed mother, Marie.
‘For all the ridiculous promises Marie made to me about my father and our eventual life together, she was wise enough to only tell me selective information about him … But she did make the mistake of pointing out his house to me after a trip to Hampstead Heath … And even then, I remember understanding so clearly that something very wrong had been done to Marie and me.’
And when she discovers that her father rejected Marie’s pleas for help as she was dying, the rage builds in a thirteen-year-old daughter and doesn’t diminish with age. Grace is gloriously unpalatable with her unapologetic opinions on everything from the diminishing standards of the English language, do-gooders, fashion faux pas, her “undeniable moron” cellmate, Kelly and pretty much everyone she encounters. But even Grace has a friend. Yet even Jimmy falls foul of her scathing judgement.
With such an unpleasant protagonist you might be wondering why I kept reading? Simple.
1. Will Grace get what’s coming to her?
2. Why is she in jail and will she get out?
3. The writing.
Bella Mackie is a terrific storyteller. I read somewhere that actors love to play villains. And I expect it must be the same when writing such a wonderfully wicked one. There was so much enjoyment in the writing. And I can only imagine how much research went into the book, let’s hope it didn’t lead to any awkward questions. Sorry, officer. I’m only investigating ways of killing people for a novel. Isn’t a position you want to find yourself in.
As ever, I won’t provide any spoilers. What I will say is the reader is left to decide what happens after the final page. And I made a decision I was happy with. Well done Bella Mackie, How To Kill Your Family was hugely enjoyable. My verdict – highly recommended.