I’m completing my quarter cannonball with The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentill. The novel is a book within a book. Hannah is writing a mystery focused on Freddie, an Australian woman on a writing fellowship in Boston. She meets three strangers in the Boston library reading room: Cain, a fellow writer and handsome, Walt, a rich law student with no work ethic, and Marigold, a goth-esque psychology student. They hear a blood-curdling scream like someone being murdered…but no body is found. That is, until a few hours later, a woman’s hidden body is uncovered.
In the meta book, the group is bonded by the scream and keeps meeting up. At first, Freddie and Cain want to talk about books since they’re both writers. Freddie starts to write a story loosely based on the strangers. But then, Walt realizes he knows the victim. Without spoiling, more connections are revealed, hinting that maybe one of them is a killer. It gets messier when romantic feelings get added to the mix.
At the end of each chapter, we get letters from Hannah’s beta reader, Lee. He offers advice on what to tweak in the story and interesting commentary on the mystery. He’s trying to guess what comes next, so you get to see if he’s right in the next chapters. You’ll see some corrections of the American language added based on his notes as the book unfolds. There is also a “real world” plot happening via the letters.
I bought this based on Narfna’s review a few years ago. It took some stops and starts, but I was satisfied with the ending. I recommend reading the audiobook to get the vibe of the characters, and the print/e-book for the letter vibes. I liked how the book tried to subvert expectations with commentary from both Lee, the beta reader, and Freddie, writing her own book version of events. It wasn’t confusing to follow the way everything was introduced. Freddie is essentially the protagonist and has the biggest arc. The library locked room mystery premise drew me in, but I stayed to figure out the truth more of the characters, and less of who the murderer was. Was Freddie’s POV flawed at times, yes, but I was excited to go on the ride.
Read this if you’re a fan of the book-within-a-book framework, mysteries with likeable but flawed characters. It’s not quite as dark as a Lucy Foley novel or as light as a cozy mystery with a pun-filled title. It’s in between with a healthy mix of suspenseful twists, unexpected romance, and a mystery riddle to unravel.
