Murder mystery 'We Would Never' is a twisty family character study

Agatha Christie once observed, “Very few of us are what we seem.”

Tova Mirvis puts this axiom to good use in her fourth novel “We Would Never” — an appealingly twisty murder mystery that is as much a family character study as it is a crime drama.

A resident of Newton, Mirvis is also the author of the memoir “The Book of Separation” as well as essays that have appeared in publications including The New York Times Book Review, Boston Globe Magazine, and Poets & Writers.

As in some of her previous novels, like “Visible City,” Mirvis shades comic scenes with an underlying darkness. “We Would Never” might read in parts like a domestic romp wrapped in yellow crime scene tape, but you never forget that an innocent man has been brutally murdered.

In the novel’s prologue, Jonah — father to young Maya, husband of Hailey — opens his front door to a fatal gunshot. The killer is unknown. The main narrative, often told in a slyly ironic style, gradually reveals what led to Jonah’s demise.

Jonah and Hailey were in the midst of a divorce that turned hostile over a custody battle. Jonah wants Hailey and Maya to remain close to their Binghamton, New York home, while Hailey wants to move to West Palm Beach, Florida to be near her family.

And what a family she has. Even long distance, her parents and her oldest brother Nate manage to meddle in Hailey’s marriage. Hailey views their behavior as supportive, Jonah views it as controlling. He often warns Hailey that her mother would “consume them whole” if they let her.

Indeed, her family is a claustrophobically tight lot; Nate has gone into medical practice with their father Solomon, and their mother Sherry works part time in the office.

When Jonah demands that Hailey and their daughter live close enough so he can share custody, some members of Hailey’s family go from outrage to wishful thinking. Jonah is making so much trouble for Hailey — what if he just wasn’t in the picture? What if someone could be hired to get him out of the picture?

As outlandish as this all sounds, Mirvis was inspired to write this novel by a real-life contract killing that arose from a custody dispute. “We Would Never” does share some elements with the true crime story, but has more than enough original personalities and narrative curveballs to distinguish itself as an individual work of fiction.

Hailey’s family members view themselves as good people. Very good people. Who would never seriously contemplate the unthinkable. And yet…

The novel’s title all but begs for an outraged exclamation point.

Mirvis maintains an entertaining two-tiered tone throughout the story, presenting the world as seen through this family’s eyes and how the world — and the reader — sees them.

This makes for an engagingly off-balance and plausible circle of suspects. Hailey fears losing control over where she and Maya will live. Nate has always been impulsive. Sherry is flamboyantly protective of her family. Solomon is a quiet yet forceful presence. And what about Adam, the brother who’s rarely spoken of by other family members?

Of all the people in “We Would Never,” Sherry is quite a creation. I hope Mirvis had a good time creating this character, because it’s a kick to read any scene she is in. Forever convinced she knows best, she has blithely dismissed criticisms through the years from teachers, friends, other parents, even her husband that she is over-involved in her kids’ lives.

Hailey was most affected by Sherry’s clingy devotion, making her unable to forge an identity beyond that of cheery accommodation. No surprise that Hailey was drawn to Jonah’s confident, decisive nature, and chose to view his impatient side as evidence of deeper layers in his personality. As with her mother, she sees what she wants to see.

Jonah is the only main character who is shown entirely through others’ perceptions of him. Even without a first-person voice, he emerges as a realistic reminder that we all display different aspects of ourselves to different people. Jonah could be warm and funny with friends and colleagues; affectionate and impatient with his wife; polite but prickly around his in-laws.

Occasionally, reality seeps through tiny cracks in Sherry’s façade. In scenes that land with poignancy, Sherry recalls the low-level chaos that would roil their household: how Nate would goad their father into angry outbursts; how Adam never seemed comfortable at home or at school; how Hailey would agree with everyone to keep the peace.

Mirvis subtly shows how those earlier interactions helped to shape the kids’ personalities and contributed to Sherry’s determinedly upbeat portrait of a loving family whose members would do anything for each other.

More than anything, “We Would Never” exposes the perilous side of loyalty, how it can drive some of these good people to shift their moral framework in ways reminiscent of a Patricia Highsmith novel. (That is, if Highsmith wrote comedy.) Some of the most chilling moments arise not from the planning of the murder but at its inception, when Jonah’s predators no longer view him as a person, merely an obstacle to Hailey’s happiness.

At one point, a character muses, “People liked to make all kinds of proclamations about what they would never do… All it meant was that they hadn’t yet found themselves in a situation where they might.”

As the action accelerates, there are some narrative detours that threaten to slacken the pace. Some characters experience recurring anxiety dreams, whose repetitions quickly begin to feel extraneous instead of portentous. Through the voices of different family members, Mirvis labels Hailey as a people pleaser, so often that it dilutes some needed depth from her as a protagonist.

However, these are relatively minor distractions in a tale with many interlocking pieces that fit together smartly and well, populated with characters who are comic, awful, fragile and affecting. This strong mix makes the dénouement at once a surprising and a satisfyingly logical conclusion to everything that has come before.

Tova Mirvis will be at Porter Square Books on Feb. 12, Wellesley Books on March 4 and Hummingbird Books on March 12.