A classic never goes out of style ... Here’s a suspense tale so old-fashioned, I’m hard-pressed to recall an element of it that doesn’t derive straight from the 'It Was a Dark and Stormy Night' playbook. Among other Gothic delights, there’s a crumbling old mansion, a disputed inheritance, an orphaned heroine and a grim housekeeper whose signature supper dish is gristle stew ... Somehow, Ware takes all these tarnished suspense tropes, gives them a brisk working-over with a polishing cloth and recovers the ageless beauty of the traditional ... The Death of Mrs. Westaway is superb. In addition to its brooding atmosphere and labyrinthine mistaken-identity plot, the novel also gives us a heroine of real depth in Hal.
The Verdict: unputdownable, gothic-inspired suspense ... another outstanding novel of psychological suspense from an author who has quickly earned her title of 'modern-day Agatha Christie.' Dare I say it? The Death of Mrs. Westaway is my favorite Ruth Ware book yet ... readers will be thrilled to know that Hal is an absolute breath of fresh air as a protagonist ... The gothic mansion at the core of this book is as formidable as are the secrets it houses. I could picture this building, with its iron gates, yard full of magpies, and many, many dark, dusty rooms ... I wish this book hadn’t had to end.
The labyrinth Ware has devised here is much more winding than expected, with reveals even on the final pages. The plotting is not completely seamless, but that is more than made up for by a clever heroine and an atmospheric setting, accented by wisps of meaning that drift from the tarot cards.
A dysfunctional family, a quiet troubled protagonist, a mystery ... There is so much more to this story. The characters introduced later on all have such unique personalities and histories, and the dialogue was as if it was straight from an Agatha Christie novel ... This is the kind of book you want to keep reading just to find out more about these characters and how they came to be who they are. This novel had everything I looked for in a mystery – great dialogue, great characters, relatable protagonist, and family secrets!
Customers go to Harriet 'Hal' Westaway, a 21-year-old tarot-card reader with a booth on the Brighton Pier, in hopes of getting a peek into their futures. But it’s Hal’s own future that seems hexed: She’s in hock to a loan shark who has given her seven days to pay up—or else ... And at the end of Ms. Ware’s captivating and eerie page-turner, Hal finds herself saying 'the last thing she had intended. The truth.'
The Death Of Mrs. Westaway is a perfectly executed mystery very much in the mode of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca ... I predict that lovers of first-class suspense will want to shut out the sunny delights of summer...and read until the stunning endgames here are played out.
Though set in modern times, it opens with a Gothic feel ... all manner of threats, lies, betrayal and intrigue are rattling skeletons in the family closets. The story keeps the suspense at an entertaining level and is a fine fourth card in Ware’s growing deck of thriller.
Ware continues to hone her gift for the slow unspooling of unease and mystery, developing a consistent sense of threat that’s pervasive and gripping ... Ware's novels continue to evoke comparison to Agatha Christie; they certainly have that classic flavor despite the contemporary settings. Expertly paced, expertly crafted.
