Thicker Than Water: Six Crime Fiction Novels If You Love Family Dramas

After Jenny Wolf’s father is murdered, the thirty-six-year-old suddenly becomes in charge of a multi-billion-dollar empire and a family that makes the Roys in Succession and the Duttons in Yellowstone seem tame. As the most powerful family in California, Jenny has all the tools at her disposal to solve her father’s murder.

This classic saga of an American crime family, the Corleone’s, is an unforgettable story of crime and corruption and passion and loyalty that has continued to stand the test of time. It’s a novel about the Mafia underworld that was turned into an incomparable film of the same name. Nominated as one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read, it’s a tale of family, society, law, and order that reveals the dark side of human nature against the backdrop of the American dream.

Marie Monroe was the perfect daughter—patient, kind, and obedient. Geraldine was the bad sister, fleeing town after her mother’s death twenty-five years ago. Now, Geraldine is home again and the sisters unite for the ultimate revenge against their father for his cruel punishments, constant manipulation, and lies. But as old secrets are uprooted, they learn that they can’t trust anyone, not even each other.

Julia Bennett has worked hard to make a stable life for her daughter, Cora. When Cora leaves for college, the worst Julia expects is an argument with her ex-husband and his new wife. But a sudden attack leaves everyone shocked and Cora is saved by Julia’s quick actions. Ren Petrovic, a newly pregnant trained assassin, wasn’t on campus that day, but knows her husband, Nolan, was. What she doesn’t know is why Nolan didn’t tell her about the job beforehand. Both mothers want answers, but their search pits them against each other. Bother are determined to defend their family to the bitter end.  

David Burroughs and his wife Cheryl lived a dream life with their three-year-old son Matthew in the suburbs. Until one day, David woke to discover Matthew’s murder while David was asleep just down the hall. Half a decade later, David is wrongly accused and convicted of the murder. He’s serving out his time in a maximum security prison and the world seems to have moved on. Until Cheryl’s younger sister, Rachel, makes a surprise visit to show David a strange photograph of a boy in the background who bears an eerie resemblance to Matthew. David plans an escape and is set on finding the answers to save his son and clear his name.

Twenty-six-year-old Dahlia Lighthouse is still haunted by her upbringing, raised on a secluded island in a mansion deep in the woods by her true crime-obsessed parents. She has never been able to forget her twin brother's disappearance. Dahlia returns home after several years away, following her father’s death. She and her family make a horrific discovery: un her father’s plot, there’s another body—Andy’s with his skull split open with an ax. The effects of this spurred different reactions from her and her eccentric family. As Dahlia grapples with her own grief, she realizes that her family and the mansion itself may reveal answers to what really happened to Andy.