Review: A Line of Blood by Ben McPherson

Title: A Line of Blood by Ben McPherson
Publisher: William Morrow
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery
Length: 416 pages
Book Rating: B

Complimentary Review Copy Provided by Publisher Through Edelweiss

Summary:

Whose secrets cut deeper?
Your family’s.

Whose secrets do you fear?
Your neighbor’s.

Whose secrets can kill?
Your own.

For Alex Mercer, his wife, Millicent, and their precocious eleven-year-old son, Max, are everything—his little tribe that makes him feel all’s right with the world. But when he and Max find their enigmatic next-door neighbor dead in his apartment, their lives are suddenly and irrevocably changed. The police begin an extremely methodical investigation, and Alex becomes increasingly impatient for them to finish. After all, it was so clearly a suicide.

As new information is uncovered, troubling questions arise—questions that begin to throw suspicion on Alex, Millicent, and even Max. Each of them has secrets it seems. And each has something to hide.

With the walls of their perfect little world closing in on them day after day, husband, wife, and son must decide how far they’ll go to protect themselves—and their family—from investigators carefully watching their every move . . . waiting for one of them to make a mistake.

A Line of Blood explores what it means to be a family—the ties that bind us, and the lies that can destroy us if we’re not careful. Highly provocative, intensely twisty and suspenseful, this novel will have you wondering if one of them is guilty—or if all of them are—and will keep you on edge until its shocking final pages.

You will never look at your loved ones the same way again. .

Review:

In A Line of Blood by Ben McPherson, the Mercer family’s secrets are unearthed during the investigation of their neighbor’s suspicious death.

Alex and his eleven year old son Max are searching for their cat when they discover their neighbor Bryce’s body in his bathtub. Convinced the death is a suicide, Alex is taken off guard by the ensuing police investigation. He falls under suspicion when the police uncover evidence that his wife Millicent has more than a passing acquaintance with Bryce. The deeper he delves into both Bryce’s life and Millicent’s relationship with him, Alex becomes convinced that she is involved in his death, but is the truth much darker than anyone suspects?

While it first appears the Mercer’s are a close-knit, loving family, it soon becomes apparent this is not the case. They never really recovered from an tragic loss that occurred years earlier and despite Alex and Millicent’s devotion to Max, their marriage is clearly troubled. Alex is gone for long stretches of time due to his job and he has no idea the toll his absences have taken on Millicent. He is stunned to learn that she turned to their neighbor for solace and Alex is incredibly hurt and angered by her betrayal.

While Alex is completely clueless about what is occurring in his marriage, Max is surprisingly astute and observant about Millicent’s extracurricular activities. In some ways, he is remarkably mature but in the matters that truly count, he lacks the experience to make well-informed decisions. Max can be rather manipulative but neither Alex nor Millicent pick up on this aspect of his personality until they are forced to scrutinize his role in recent events.

Narrated in first person from Alex’s point of view, A Line of Blood by is an intriguing mystery. This cleverly written whodunit is a little dark and disturbing with plenty of unexpected plot twists, startling revelations and a very shocking conclusion. An absolutely riveting debut novel by Ben McPherson that fans of the genre do not want to miss.