Ruth isn’t excited to be spending a weekend at her step grandmother’s place. It’s in the middle of nowhere with no internet or cellphone coverage – without a walk to a distant paddock. GG isn’t a cuddly kind of grandmother, but Ruth is polite and helpful to her grandad’s widow.

It does help that Ruth’s might-be cousin Dylan is there too. In fact the whole family has turned up. What was supposed to be a couple of screen-free days with family, is stretched into more when a someone gets bitten by a snake and ends up in hospital. They decide to wait for his release, when something even worse happens. GG is murdered!

It’s a shock. No-one is particularly close to her, but still, she was alive when they all went off to bed, then suddenly she wasn’t. The murder weapon seems to be the unlikely and strange choice of GG’s own typewriter.

After the shock of a death in the family, and murder at that, Ruth’s clue finding, detective-wannabe mind kicks in. She quickly ropes Dylan into the sleuthing and together they piece together motives, clues, missing items, and strange behaviours.

Who killed GG?

Despite her dad trying to keep her away from all the discussions, she won’t quit on this mystery.

Was it an aunt who really wasn’t? A long lost son after GG’s money? Grandad’s love child lost to the family when adopted out as a child? A couch surfing surfer? Or maybe someone else in the family with hidden agendas?

With multiple awards to it’s name, My Family and Other Suspects deserves every accolade. This murder mystery is funny, clever, brilliantly plotted, and has a killer ending. (Scuse the pun).

Ruth is hilarious, talking directly to the reader as she unravels clues, crushes on her might-be cousin, second guesses herself one moment and takes giant risks with her assumptions the next. She, along with her aunts all swoon (just a little), as the hunky neighbour comes to condole them after a death in the family.

Blame flies from one family member to the next in Ruth’s mind, but surprises and secrets are everywhere, and untangling them all takes Ruth on all manner of trajectories. Bit by bit, clue by clue, she begins piecing them together to find the culprit – all while mocking the reader with questions on how well they’re doing with their own investigations and puzzle solving.

A murder mystery like no other, My Family and Other Suspects is captivating. 

Author – Kate Emery

Age – 12+

Awards:

• Selected, One of the Best Young Adult Books for 2024 – Readings Books, 2024, AU
• Winner, Best Young Adult Fiction, Indie Book Awards, 2025, AU
• Notable Book, Book of Year: Older Readers, CBCA Awards, 2025, AU
• Shortlisted, Best Young Adult Cover, Australian Book Design Awards, 2025, AU
• Winner, John Marsden Book of the Year for Older Children, Australian Book Industry Awards, 2025, AU
• Winner, Young Adult Book of the Year, WA Premier’s Book Awards, 2025, AU
• Longlisted, Best Young Adult Crime Fiction, Davitt Awards, 2025, AU

Publisher – Allen & Unwin

Set in – Contemporary Rural Australia

Viewpoints – 1st person – Direct Address

Orphan – No (Parents apart)

Violence – Minimal

Real Life – Yes

Fantasy – No

Sex – No

Blend – Mystery / Humour / Family Dynamics

(2026, Allen & Unwin, Blended Family, Crime, Family, Humour, Murder, Mystery, Real Life, Secret, Cousins, Grandmother, Fraud, Clues, Award Winner, Western Australian Premier’s Book Awards Winner, 2025 ABIA Winner, Australian Books Industry Awards, Sherlock Holmes & Watson)