Two stories in one – a mystery within a mystery – I jumped at the chance to review The Woman in the Library by award-winning author Sulari Gentill. From the blurb:

“The Woman in the Library is an unexpectantly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship – and shows that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.”

It sounded intriguing and not like your typical whodunnit – I had to check it out!

This murder mystery, whilst following a lot of the tropes of a typical murder mystery, is not run-of-the-mill. First and foremost, we are introduced to Hannah Tigone, an Australian best-selling author, who is writing a new mystery novel. Whilst we don’t actually find out much about Hannah, we read each of her newly-written unpublished chapters, and are soon thrown into Hannah’s fictional story.

It begins in the Boston Public Library, where four seemingly innocent strangers bond over a blood curdling scream…

“And then there is a scream. Ragged and terrified. A beat of silence even after it stops, until we all seem to realise that the Reading Room Rules no longer apply.”

A death in a library – a fun way to start a murder mystery – it is intriguing from the off. These strangers (Freddie, Cain, Marigold and Whit), also suspects, get to know one another and together they begin piecing together clues to find out more information about what happened. The four strangers, come from very different backgrounds but complement each other well. It must be said, the relationships which develop between them are the most enjoyable elements of Gentill’s novel in my opinion, and add a humanistic quality to the story as friendships and romance come into play within the plot. We soon find out that these strangers have a few secrets themselves, including possible motivations for murder, and we know from the blurb that ‘one of them is the murderer!’ so it is up to us to figure out who it is!

However, solving Hannah’s murder, is only part of the fun of Gentill’s writing. Alongside Hannah’s novel, we also see letters addressed to Hannah from another of Gentill’s characters: Leo, a fellow writer and huge fan (if not slightly obsessed), is also reading along trying to solve the mystery just like us (Hannah has posted her chapters to him for critiquing). He has some strong opinions on her writing, including that of who the killer is (or should be), and offers his advice, welcome or otherwise, with edits and corrections to improve her work. Whilst initially seeming harmless and helpful, offering an alternative word to use or providing support describing a location (as Hannah is not a local in Boston), he appears to be a friendly nitpicker, however, as time goes on, he becomes overly critical and overbearing. During the novel, his suggestions get more concerning and begin to add a sinister element, posing a potential danger to Hannah (Will there also be a murder in this part of Gentill’s novel too? – I will let you find out for yourself). Whilst some could say these letters disjoint the narrative, I really enjoyed them, as they actually felt realistic and added the ‘extra’ element to this novel, making it stand out as a contender in the genre.

As Gentill moves from Hannah’s chapters to Leo’s letters, you definitely are kept on your toes – I enjoyed the variation and many times was either pleasantly surprised by twists and turns in the relationships between the four strangers, and equally shocked by what Leo’s letters contained, causing me to stay up late to read the next chapter and see how things developed.

That being said, the story Hannah is writing is in first person (writing as Freddie – who is also writing a novel), and can get a little confusing…a novel within a novel within a novel! Many times, I was muddling the ‘writer’ Hannah with the character, Freddie. Equally confusing, Freddie uses the other three strangers she meets as inspriation for her novel and gives them nicknames: Handsome Man, Heroic Chin and Freud Girl – I had to keep checking who was who to begin with, until they became friends and she began using their actual names more. Also, lines were blurred between Leo, the writer of the letters, with a character called Leo who Hannah had written into her story – all of these elements made it tricky at times to separate the fiction from the pseudo-fiction! I wonder if all of this confusion was a purposeful choice by Gentill, as we as readers end up blurring storylines in the same way as Leo does.

I really enjoyed this novel, albeit needing to cross-check who was who from time to time. As the story ramped up to the finale, I was hooked and read the last third very quicky, keen to know who the murderer was, how the relationships would play out (particularly those involving a love interest), but also what would become of Leo – The Woman in the Library is a page-turner for sure and definitely worth a read!