Megan Cooley Peterson is an author, editor, and coffee drinker. As a teenager, Peterson was part of a cult-like doomsday church that didn’t like to be questioned. She questioned anyway. She has written more than 200 nonfiction books for children on a wide variety of topics, including dinosaurs, sharks, urban legends, and haunted objects. She is also the author of two young adult thrillers, The Liar’s Daughter (2019) and Dead Girls Talking (2024). Peterson lives in Minnesota with her husband and daughter.
At CrimeReads she tagged eight books exploring real life crimes in fiction and narrative nonfiction. One title on the list:
The Family Plot by Megan CollinsRead about another entry on the list.
What would it be like to grow up in a family obsessed with true crime? Megan Collins explores this idea in her novel The Family Plot. The parents in the novel are obsessed with true crime, naming each of their children after famous murder victims. When the father dies and the adult children return home to bury him, they find their long-lost brother already buried in their father’s reserved plot. Several true crime cases are alluded to in this story, including the Black Dahlia, Charles Manson, and the Lindbergh baby kidnapping. It’s a deliciously sinister read.
The Family Plot is among Lisa M. Matlin's six creepy novels featuring murder houses and Steph Mullin's ten top novels inspired by true crimes.
The Page 69 Test: The Family Plot.
--Marshal Zeringue
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