A Stranger in the Family: A Novel of Suspense
Robert Barnard
Scribner, 2010
U.S. hardcover, first edition
ISBN 978-1-4391-7674-0
250 pages; $24.00

Robert Barnard has written more than 40 mysteries in his distinguished career, and has never once failed to turn out a beautifully written novel that tells an engaging story. Much like Jane Austen’s works, Barnard’s stories can be likened to ivory miniatures: precise, lovely, detailed. And like Austen, Barnard has a sly wit and a quiet irony that makes his tales all the more engaging.

A Stranger in the Family is not a murder mystery; you will find no dead bodies in these pages, except for those who have died a natural death. But there is still plenty of suspense, as Kit Philipson tries to discover the truth behind his abduction at the age of three. It’s a tangled story that takes Kit from his home in Glasgow following the deaths of his adoptive parents to the home of his birth mother in Leeds and ultimately to Sicily to unravel all the threads. In the process, Kit must examine his heritage as the adopted son of a Jewish refugee from World War II, deal with his natural siblings who fear that he will take away “their” share of his birth mother’s estate upon her eventual death, and ultimately speak with a Mafioso who made huge profits from the suffering of others.

Barnard can communicate such a great deal with such an economy of words that one marvels. A train journey is made vivid in a single sentence: “Four people in his compartment were talking into their mobiles – conversations of the most indescribable banality, which made one wonder what God’s purpose in creating language had been.” A character is described out in a phrase:
“[T]he old man sat up in the bed, royally genial and welcoming, wearing a dressing gown and a woolen hat that made him look like a Dickens illustration.” Barnard’s talent is such that he can tell us just enough to let our imaginations finish the job perfectly well.

There’s a reason Barnard was awarded the Cartier Diamond Dagger Award for excellence in mystery writing. Pick up A Stranger in the Family and find out for yourself just what a wonderful writer he is.