The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
A twisty, atmospheric thriller with a killer premise, this one also has something of a Dickensian vibe about it, with it’s over-the-top money collector and it’s chilling, Gothic house. There’s a lot of stammering and waffling by our protagonist (and why is her throat always “stiff”?), and the secondary characters were a bit overblown and overdone, but in general I enjoyed the story and found the plot itself absorbing.
A fun, entertaining, mindless read that I flew through and recommend reading while curled up in front of the fire on a cold, cheerless winter’s night.
Yeah, this one got “twisted” until it broke. If Maud was the only mother Hal had ever known, how did Hal recognize Matty in the photograph Abel gave her?
We’re supposed to be able to trust authors not to make mistakes like this (like, how can it even HAPPEN?), and editors to catch the errors if they DO occur. In my bookgroup, I was the only one who caught this rather glaring problem. That’s not necessarily a tribute to me, but it might be a reflection on Ware’s fans.