Book Review: Family Lies by Karen Rose

 

Family Lies is a suspense thriller written by award winning novelist, Karen Rose. This is the fourth novel in the San Diego Case File series. 

San Diego Homicide Detective Kit McKittrick and police psychologist/ boyfriend Sam Reeves. 

This case focuses on Lit’s foster sister Akiko. A recently deceased woman, Mary leaves a message on Aliko’s answer machine claiming to have information about her birth mother. Kit is shot and wounded when she goes to Mary’s house at Akiko’s request to find out what she knows about her mother and finds Her body. and the story develops from there.  Mary had been in touch with Aliko’s sensei and mentor (who was subsequently beaten up). The plot line is increasingly murky as they are drawn into the Japanese mafia underworld. 

I enjoyed this novel, but I did find it to be very long and complicated with lots of subplots and characters that were superfluous to or didn’t add anything to the storyline. I found the name changing for the Japanese characters very confusing, and unnecessary. The plot line could could have been pared down without losing the overall direction of the plot.