Zeb Wykham doesn’t much care for his family, but when a cousin says he wants to get to know him, Zeb accepts an invitation to spend two weeks at Lackaday House on Dartmore. Zeb is distressed to find that his brother, sister-in-law, another cousin, a fourth older relative, and his ex are all there too. His host has lied about the purpose of the visit. Instead of a cozy getting to know you visit, Wynn Wykham has decided he will make the man who marries his ward, Jessamine, his heir. Zeb wants nothing to do with this, but Wynn keeps finding reasons Zeb can’t leave. He’s got them all trapped in a possibly haunted, definitely creepy house full of hostile servants and family secrets.
All of Us Murderers has excellent gothic elements – the awful house party, trapped on a foggy moorland, secrets, lies, maybe ghosts, retribution for family sins, and transgressive characters who challenge the norm. Lackaday House is genuinely horrible. Grotesque things happen there, but off page. The atmosphere is oppressive on so many fronts – the weather, the hostility of the staff, the angry dinners with relatives. There’s a growing sense of danger and an increasing body count. As Zeb and Gideon, his ex who hates him because Zeb got him fired without a reference, start to talk and compare notes, it becomes clear that Wynn has some dreadful purpose in mind.
Zeb is transgressive in the best way. Rather than illustrating the danger of living outside social norms, he reveals those norms to be corrupt. He wants nothing to do with the family money and insists that Jessamine should not be a prize, but allowed to make her own choices. He is kind and respectful towards the staff, which saves his life. Zeb is nominally transgressive because he is queer, but the real way he exposes the rot at the core of social norms is his refusal to sacrifice his morals for money and his insistence on treating people like autonomous beings with inherent worth.
I received this as an advance reader copy from Sourcebooks and NetGalley. My opinions are my own, freely and honestly given.