If you tell A true story of murder, family secrets, and the unbreakable bond of sisterhood

Veteran true-crime and crime fiction author Olsen tells the shocking true story of the Knotek family and their sadistic matriarch, Shelly. At a young age, Shelly showed signs of aberrant behavior: she enjoyed humiliating people, was quick to anger, and believed she was infallible and deserving. After two marriages and two children, Nikki and Sami, she finds a malleable accomplice in third husband Dave who does her bidding horrifying physical and emotional abuse inflicted at any hour, day or night. They have another daughter, Tori, and take in their nephew, Shane. All the children suffer, but Nikki is the main target until Shelly's friend Kathy moves in. Shelly begins a campaign to mentally and physically destroy Kathy, who becomes a shell of her former self. The details are appalling but it is even more outrageous that Shelly gets away with it for years mostly because her daughters are terrified of her even after moving away. Olsen presents the story chronologically and in a simple, straightforward style, which works well: it is chilling enough as is.--Kathy Sexton Copyright 2019 Booklist

This horrifying tale of a dysfunctional and murderous family in rural Washington State from bestseller Olsen (A Killing in Amish Country) focuses on Shelly Knotek and how she abused, tormented, and controlled her third husband and her three daughters. Not for the squeamish, the narrative chronicles how the girls endured beatings, bleach baths, and verbal abuse, at the same time shedding light on how and why Shelly's family bowed to her tyranny for years. Shelly brought others into her insane world and home, including her nephew Shane, her best friend Kathy Lorenzo, and an almost stranger Ron Woodworth, all of whom ended up dead. Eldest daughter Nikki, after years of torture, fled to her grandmother's and began a new life, while middle child Sami bargained with Shelly that she wouldn't tell the family secrets if she could go to college. But youngest sister Tori was left at home, and when Tori revealed that she was now the target of violence, the sisters banded together and forced a police inquest that resulted in the rescue of Tori and the arrest and imprisonment of both parents. This riveting account will leave readers questioning every odd relative they've known. Agent: Susan Raihofer, David Black Agency. (Dec.)Due to a production error, this review originally erroneously published as a non-starred review.

A true story of three abused sisters who helped put their mother behind bars.Nobody seemed to notice when a live-in babysitter vanished from the home of Dave and Shelly Knotek in tiny Raymond, Washington, in 1994. Then two more of the family's boarders disappeared, and Shelly's three daughters suspected the frightening truth: The couple had murdered the missing people. In his latest true-crime book, Olsen (Lying Next to Me, 2019, etc.) follows the half sisters, whose fears proved justified whenafter the older two went to the police with the approval of the thirdShelly and Dave were arrested in 2003 and sent to prison for their roles in the deaths of babysitter Kathy Loreno and two others. It's a grim tale, told in 85 short, James Patterson-esque chapters, leavened only by the sisters' courage, strength, and love for one another. For years, Shelly inflicted sadistic abuses on her boarders and her daughters as Dave helped or stood by passively. Loreno was drugged, beaten, starved, and subjected to a crude form of waterboarding using a bucket and modified seesaw, and the Knoteks' other victims endured similar cruelties. Olsen had access to the sisters, Dave Knotek, and a grandmother. Yet his overheated and repetitive prose robs the victims' heart-rending stories of the high emotional impact they deserve. The three sisters are TV movie-ready tropes: Nikki, the strong-willed oldest; Sami, the accommodating middle child; and Tori, the baby who understood nothing until she understood everything. As for their mother, "Shelly was Cujo. Freddy Krueger. The freaky clown, Pennywise, from It." For all its sordid details, the book never satisfactorily answers a question at its heart: In the sort of small town in which everyone tends to know everyone else's business, how did the Knoteks' horrific crimes go undetected for so long?Murder, torture, and sisterly love milked for all their potential melodrama. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.