The Woman in the Library by Sulari Gentil Narrator: Katherine Littrell
Published by Poisoned Pen Press on June 7, 2022
Source: NetGalley
Genres: Mystery
Pages: 292
Format: eARC
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In every person's story, there is something to hide...
The ornate reading room at the Boston Public Library is quiet, until the tranquility is shattered by a woman's terrified scream. Security guards take charge immediately, instructing everyone inside to stay put until the threat is identified and contained. While they wait for the all-clear, four strangers, who'd happened to sit at the same table, pass the time in conversation and friendships are struck. Each has his or her own reasons for being in the reading room that morning—it just happens that one is a murderer.
Award-winning author Sulari Gentill delivers a sharply thrilling read with The Woman in the Library, an unexpectedly twisty literary adventure that examines the complicated nature of friendship and shows us that words can be the most treacherous weapons of all.
For me, The Woman in the Library cared a bit too much about its concept than its characters or plot. I’m not a giant fan of metafiction and didn’t realize from the blurb what I was getting into. That being said, even though it’s not exactly up my aisle, I do think the author did a decent job with it.
I guess there are three stories here. Australian author Hannah is writing a murder mystery feature Winifred, the woman in the library from the blurb who becomes embroiled in a murder mystery. Winifred is also writing a book inspired by the three people she meets in the library. Hannah’s beta reader is Leo and most of the book alternates between Hannah’s chapters featuring Winifred and Leo’s e-mail responses. Once you get into the rhythm, it works well, but the structure did keep me off balance and at a distance from any of the characters.
We’ve got two plots here. (Winifred’s manuscript doesn’t get a plot, just characters.) The mystery involving Winifred and her new friends took some interesting turns with plenty of misdirection and a couple of good twists. It would have been a little over the top if it had been the whole mystery, but as it’s fiction within the story it worked well and kept my attention. The second plot involving Leo and Hannah in the “real” world took a turn midway through that I probably should have seen coming, but didn’t. On the other hand, I don’t know that I really cared anyway. In the “real” world there were some references to the pandemic that I could have done without. I didn’t feel like they added much to the narrative and honestly, I don’t really want COVID in my fiction.
I didn’t love the book. I didn’t hate it. It was worth reading but I can’t think of anyone I would actually recommend it to.
About Sulari Gentil
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. 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 and their two boys 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 more reviews of this one that I read the less I want to read it. I don’t always love that story within a story plot device.
It wasn’t terrible, just not one I can say I really enjoyed.
blogwalking.. have a nice day!
TREK
Thanks for stopping by.
I’ve read all her Rowland Sinclair mysteries & enjoyed them all except for the last one which I think should have concluded the series but didn’t… they have a lot of Aussie politics in them so I don’t know how much they’d appeal to those who weren’t familiar with some of it. I don’t think I’d bother with this one you read by the sounds of it but I liked her writing style in the others.
I have never read any of her Rowland Sinclair books. It sounds like I’ve be pretty lost in them though.