The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill
In every person's story, there is something to hide...
Author
Sulari Gentill
Publisher
Poisoned Pen Press
Genre
Mystery & Thrillers
Number of Pages
288 pages
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Summary
We are at the Boston Public Library’s reading room. Our heroine Freddie is admiring the ornate ceiling and then the silence is shattered by a woman’s scream. The guards in the library take over and ask everyone to wait until there’s an all-clear.
Meanwhile, Freddie is sitting at the table wondering about the cause of the scream with four other strangers. They strike up a conversation and a deep friendship between the four follows. But what none of them realize is that the next day a woman’s body will be found at the library and one of the four is the murderer.
My Review
The unusual format of this story is captivating. You will be reading a fictional story, inside a fictional story (in the form of letters between the story’s writer Hannah and her beta reader Leo). It sounds Christopher Nolanish doesn’t it?
It came to me as no surprise after I finished reading the story that the author has already won several awards and accolades in Australia, her native country, and the US for many of her other standalone and series.
The twisty plot of this novel only emphasizes my love for mysteries and why I always pick a mystery to get out of a reading slump. I simply, could not leave my Kindle screen. I had to know who was behind the entire mess and multiple murders.
I have no complaints about the story or the characters except that there were some minor grammatical mistakes, but what I read was a pre-publication manuscript, that's why I am sure it will be proofread several more times before it gets out for publication.
Final Verdict
Overall I think the story-telling style was fascinating, and the characters were also so lovable. Alas, someone had to be the murderer. And my guess proved to be wrong about it.
So please explore this gem of a mystery novel. Thank you, NetGalley and the author, for a copy of this book. I enjoyed it immensely.
Who Should Read This
Agatha Christie fans, Christopher Nolan fans and mystery fans in general will enjoy this fun story. Be warned it has some violence and a child abuse scene as well.
Sulari Gentill
Once upon a time, Sulari Gentill was a corporate lawyer serving as a director on public boards, with only a vague disquiet that there was something else she was meant to do. That feeling did not go away until she began to write. And so Sulari became the author of the Rowland Sinclair Mysteries: thus far, ten historical crime novels chronicling the life and adventures of her 1930s Australian gentleman artist, the Hero Trilogy, based on the myths and epics of the ancient world, and the Ned Kelly Award winning Crossing the Lines (published in the US as After She Wrote Hime). In 2014 she collaborated with National Gallery of Victoria to write a short story which was produced in audio to feature in the Fashion Detective Exhibition, and thereafter published by the NGV. IN 2019 Sulari was part of a 4-member delegation of Australian crime writers sponsored by the Australia Council to tour the US as ambassadors of Australian Crime Writing.
Sulari lives with her husband, Michael, and their boys, Edmund and Atticus, on a small farm in Batlow where she grows French Black Truffles and refers to her writing as “work” so that no one will suggest she get a real job.
THE WOMAN IN THE LIBRARY, Sulari’s latest novel will be released on 7 June 2022
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