Meet the Mortons: In this family, murder is currency—and business is booming.
The Mortons are a modern-day, old-money dynasty with impeccable taste, from their exquisitely crafted cocktails to their expertly tailored vintage garments. They are also stone-cold killers. For the Mortons, homicide is heritage.
They, along with the other crime families, send their progeny to Helshire College, where legacy students learn to exercise control over their wealthy peers. Jessica Morton has always excelled at Helshire, secure in the knowledge that she is the prodigy of her generation. Now, having committed her first kill, it should be Jessica’s moment, her honor. But that kill will cut more ways than one, unknotting a series of revelations spanning the Mortons’ country estate, the New York City art world, and Helshire itself.
Sharp and hypnotic, The Mortons is an epic novel of alliances and power, loyalty and kinship, and the consequences of ruthless ambition.
Praise for The Mortons
“In The Mortons, wife-and-husband team Justine Larbalestier and Scott Westerfeld create a complex, riveting character in 20-year-old narrator Jessica Morton, who’s been raised by her family to steal and murder without detection.” —Shelf Awareness
”[The] novel affords some of the pleasures generated by Addams and Soprano family shenanigans.” —Kirkus
“[A] bracing and searching story about the lengths a child will go to make their family proud. Readers won’t want to put this down. ” —Publishers Weekly
“Readers should prepare to be haunted by the family’s cruelty, but they will root for Jessica as she seeks to finally claim compassion and empathy.” —Booklist
“If you love great characters, a very intriguing plot, and lots of witty smart banter then this book is for you. Easily one of the best books I’ve read this year and is in my top ten of all time. This book is a must read.” —Waterstones
“The Mortons is a tour de force: witty, thrilling, and deliciously cruel. Enjoy it with a stiff cocktail.” —Lev Grossman, New York Timesbestselling author of The Magicians trilogy
“The Mortons are the most spectacularly unhinged crime family ever imagined. Their story hurtled along so fast and surprised me so often I was shocked to realize I’d been contemplating and recalibrating my moral compass as I read. An absolute delight.” —E. Lockhart, #1 New York Timesbestselling author of We Were Liars
“This diabolical novel reads like a mashup of Succession and The Umbrella Academy, except set within an old-money family of assassins. With its knife-sharp writing, rocket fuel pacing, and air of mystery, The Mortons is easy to get lost in, all the way up to the brutal end.” –Ashley Winstead, national bestselling author of This Book Will Bury Me
“Stunningly original and fiendishly good. The Mortons left me reeling. A masterclass in moral ambiguity and shocking twists.” –Sarah Pekkanen, #1 New York Times bestselling author of An Anonymous Girl and The Wife Between Us
“The Mortons is twisty and twisted fun. Truly original!” –Tracy Sierra, author of Nightwatching
“Dark academia has never been so dark, nor family legacy so beguilingly treacherous! Sinister, shocking, and tantalizingly possible, The Secret History meets Succession in this epic and utterly chilling family saga. What makes us who we are, and how can our moral codes be twisted to into cold and ruthless alliance? Identity, loyalty, and the power of personal decision all teeter on the precipice in this tour de force of storytelling—and I held my breath through the entire book. Call your book club and settle in–you will never be the same after you meet the Mortons.” —Hank Phillippi Ryan, USA Today bestselling author of All This Could Be Yours
