Author: Sally Hepworth
Year published: 2026
Category: Adult fiction
Pages: 352
Rating: 4.5 out of 5
Location: (my 2025 Google Reading map): Australia
Summary: Meet Mad Mabel.
Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick is eighty-one years old. She's lived on her idyllic street, Kenny Lane, for sixty years--longer than anyone else. Aside from being a curmudgeon who minds everyone else's business, few would suspect that Elsie has a past that she has worked exceedingly hard at concealing. Because when it comes to murder, no one ever suspects little girls or old ladies. And Elsie Mabel Fitzpatrick, once a little girl and now an old lady, has a strange history of people in her life coming to a foul end.
When a new little girl (talkative, curious, nosy) moves into the neighborhood and stops at nothing to befriend Elsie, her carefully-constructed life threatens to come crashing down as the secrets in Elsie's past start coming to light. Who was "Mad Mabel" fifty years ago? Who is Elsie Fitzpatrick today? And if the past has a habit of repeating itself, who has the most to lose?
Review: Good on Book of The Month for offering a Sally Hepworth novel! I read the Prologue (less than one page long) and was immediately hooked into this sarcastic mystery/thriller. I've read one of her novels before: Little Darlings (link to my review).
Wait. Thriller? Mystery? I'm just not sure how to characterize this novel. Whatever its genre, I really, really enjoyed it. Elsie is a character that I liked from the start, even though she is a little ornery. But there are layers, there is history, and a complex backstory. Getting to hear Elsie's "serial killer" story is such a ride. I went into this book thinking it was the current fashion of sarcastic murder mystery, but it is so much more.
I liked that the chapters moved from the present day and Elsie's neighbors (dare I say, friends?) and her childhood when everyone around her seemed to die. This one is a tough one to write about without giving away its secrets. Needless to say, I smiled, chuckled, and got teary. A book that can draw out all those emotions is a sure winner. I'd like to read more of Hepworth's novels.
Challenges for which this counts: none
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