I last reviewed Jonathan’s Thirteen Storeys for the Halloween read back in 2020 (LINK), so it seems somewhat appropriate that I read his latest for this year’s list!
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Have you ever thought about who does some of those really unpleasant jobs in the world? This one shows us one of them. It tells us of Diya, a young woman looking for a fresh start in life. Having had a succession of mundane jobs, this one comes out of the blue.
Whilst Slough and Sons are performing their services on Diya’s best friend Angie, who has recently died in their shared flat, Diya is offered a job. Being recently unemployed and needing the money, she accepts the job as ‘cleaner’ with the firm, a long-standing family business. However, their cleaning is not the usual sort of thing you expect but the cleaning of places where people have recently deceased – whether of natural causes or in an accident. Diya’s job, along with sisters Xen and Mary and father Frank, is to go in and dispose of the person’s worldly goods and possessions. Cleaning the floors and beds, yes, but also emptying properties of goods and possessions the deceased left behind, often so that the landlord can rent again as soon as possible.
Much of the first part of the story reads like something out of a police procedural novel. There are a number of dead bodies the team are called to, all having died in depressing ways. Diya finds that the money is very good, but she is expected to be on call 24-7. After her initial qualms she finds she actually enjoys the job and the company, especially Xen, even if Frank is a little remote and younger sister Mary claims that she can ‘sense things’.
Then Diya begins to see things. Horrible things. Things that get harder and harder to write off as merely her grieving imagination, or a psychotic episode. It doesn’t help that Diya keeps seeing a strange man that keeps turning up in the distance at their jobs. She questions whether this is real or whether her already stressed life is causing her to hallucinate.
Not only that, but all is not as it seems with the Slough family. Why won’t they speak about their own recent loss, that of Frank’s son George?
I’ve mentioned before that Jonathan is the originator of The Magnus Files award-winning audio podcast, and it shows in the pacing of this novel.
If it was badly done, Family Business could come across as a supernatural version of the TV soap opera Eastenders, but it is really not. Instead, it begins slowly and yet irresistibly, completely engaging from the start, settling us into what feels like the real world of modern-day London nicely. This, of course, makes the idea that something strange is going on as it gently seeps into the narrative be even more impactful. What happens is built up so skilfully that when the horror really starts it doesn’t destroy my sense of disbelief and instead seems entirely logical, even when it is combined with ancient pacts and occult-ish powers.
It also helps that Jonathan has developed these characters nicely, so that by the end I felt like I knew them. Diya is great, a likeable young woman with generally good intentions who is struggling to deal with grief and loneliness whilst taking on board a job she wasn’t sure about. Frank Slough is taciturn though not unfriendly, a sort of grumpy father who genuinely cares for his family and his workers, is dealing with his own grief in his own way. His daughters are opposites of each other. Xen is all energy, the livewire who generates a lot of energy and enthusiasm as well as being a possible romantic interest for Diya. That aspect of the story is subtle, and I thought well done. Mary is the quiet one, a deep-thinker and a more sensitive soul, which gives us a nice range of varied characters that all seem to work well together.
The ending is quite dramatic, as we’d expect, but fast paced and quite graphic in places. Most of all, the ending is definite enough to make the book work as a stand-alone, although I am sure that there could be more, should the author wish it to happen. I’m happy though to leave this one as it stands, as a memorable one-off. As much as I liked Thirteen Storeys, I felt that this one was better.
Family Business is a great Halloween read I found difficult to put down. A realistic setting, with likeable characters and some genuinely icky and creepy moments along the way. As such I wholeheartedly recommend it to you on our Countdown to Halloween.
Family Business by Jonathan Sims
Published by Titan Books, September 2022
ISBN: 9781473228771
336 pages
Review by Mark Yon
