He Started It

Beth Morgan’s wryly humorous narration belies the high-stakes skullduggery that awaits her and her two estranged adult siblings on the cross-country road trip they’re forced into taking with their grandfather’s ashes in order to claim slices of his fortune, in this deliciously devious psycho thriller from Downing (My Lovely Wife). According to the terms of the will, Beth, overbearing big brother Eddie, and frosty baby sister Portia must retrace the oddball odyssey westward from Atlanta they took 20 years earlier with gramps, a traumatic trip that was intended to give their parents some alone time to save their marriage but would tear their family apart. The reboot starts inauspiciously with a truck running the travelers off the road in rural Alabama and subsequently tailing them. As backstabbing, bizarre occurrences (including the disappearance of the ashes) and betrayals pile up, Downing discloses the clan’s deeply buried secrets. The journey ends in a shocking, if head-spinning, showdown in the Nevada desert. Those with a taste for suspense with a wicked kick will be rewarded. Author tour. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Literary. (July)