Not A Happy Family by Shari Lapena

 From Amazon:

Brecken Hill in upstate New York is an expensive place to live. You have to be rich to have a house there, and Fred and Sheila Merton certainly are rich. But even all their money can't protect them when a killer comes to call. The Mertons are brutally murdered after a fraught Easter dinner with their three adult kids. Who, of course, are devastated.
 
Or are they? They each stand to inherit millions. They were never a happy family, thanks to their vindictive father and neglectful mother, but perhaps one of the siblings is more disturbed than anyone knew. Did someone snap after that dreadful evening? Or did another person appear later that night with the worst of intentions? That must be what happened. After all, if one of the family were capable of something as gruesome as this, you'd know.

My Take:

This is a wonderful novel hat keeps you guessing up to the end.Let us start wih the major characters:

The parents:

Fred and Sheila- The father is a very abusive man who takes pleasure is demeaning his children. Sheila is a neglectful mother who gave all parental duties and housekeeping chores to the loving and protective nanny/housekeeper

Irena- The nanny who nurtured all the Merton kids until they grew up. After that she was delegated  the duties of a cleaner and housekeeper for the Merton Mansion.

The kids:

Catherine, an accomplished doctor who is  married to a dentist named Fred. Unfortunately the couple had a hard time conceiving which the father relished in pointung it out frequenly.

Dan- the middle child who was always verbally abused by the father aand who is married to Lisa, a housewife,

Jenna- the wild child/sculptress who never worked a day in her life and was always financially suppored by her parents.

Audrey-Fred's sister.

Important details:

Fred was about to change his will before he and his wife were brutally murdered. He wanted his sister Audrey to receive 1/2 of his estate after taxes with the  children having the second half divided between them. Then he was killed before he had the chance to change the will.

The old will stipulated that Audrey and Irena would get each 1 million dollars and the remainder divided among the children with a surprise item: there is a fourth illegitimate child. Her name is Rose who happens to be Catherine's best friend and the shyster who defrauded Dan of $500,000.

To cut through the chase, The murderer is Jenna who tried to implicate Irena by using her car and used the work suit her brother kept in the garage. This is a suit which he used when he worked outdoors.

Unfortunately her DNA was found in Irena's car but there was not enough evidence to tie her to the murders.

Audrey who was bitter about the murder that cut her inheritance to only 1 million became obsessed on trying to find the murderer. Since she hated Jenna she stalked her niece and witnessed Jenna burying the evidence in a plot that was supposed to undergo construction. When Audrey alerted the cops about this, they informed her that she could not legally have another one's property dug up without due cause.

A year later, Catherine gives birth after getting pregnant the year her parents were killed. Irena left with her 1 million visibly upset that one of the kids tried to frame her. Audrey , on the other hand, receives her 1 million and decides to revisit the site where Jenna buried the evidence. To her luck, it was for sale so she quickly called the realtor  of the property with the purpose of buying the land and digging it up for the evidence.