'The Cement Garden'

Of all the Ian McEwan novels that I have read, this is probably one of the best. It is about four children ages 17, 15, 13 and six.

Early in the story, the father retrieves a number of bags of concrete in order to turn the backyard into a "cement garden." The father promptly dies after a series of heart attacks.

Afterwards, the mother falls ill and despite her presence, she's bound to an upstairs bed and her children are effectively forced to tend to everything on their own.

The mother eventually dies and in order to keep out of the foster care situation and keep the family together, the three older children decide to encase the mother's corpse in a trunk and fill it with cement. Over time, the cement cracks and smell of the rotting corpse spreads throughout the house causing the eldest daughter's boyfriend to begin asking questions.

Meanwhile, this disturbing, semi-sexual relationship between the brother and the oldest sister that forces you to think the worst despite not knowing the entire truth. The feeling eventually becomes reality. The brother and sister engage in sex and the enraged and sickened boyfriend calls the police. This is the final scene of the book: The lights of law enforcement illuminating the bedroom, brother and sister in embrace.