Review: The Death of Mrs. Westaway

The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Out of money, out of luck and living in fear of the loanshark to whom she is debt, Harriet 'Hal' Westaway, a Brighton pier tarot card reader, receives a lifeline in the form of a letter from a Penzance solicitor informing her that she is a beneficiary of her grandmother's will. Almost immediately, Hal realises that this is a mistake as the dead woman is obviously not her grandmother, but she desperately decides to pretend otherwise in the hope of gaining the few thousand pounds to get her out of the hole she is in. And so Hal travels to the funeral and on to the Manderley-like Trepassen House and secrets of a 'family' she has never met....

I didn't know what to expect from this novel or from Ruth Ware. I had heard good things about her books, 'The Woman in Cabin 10' especially, but had not got round to reading them. 'The Death of Mrs. Westaway' is a gothic mystery which builds suspense and maintains a sense of foreboding throughout. Ruth Ware writes extremely well - one character is described as having "the air fo a man who had eaten a good meal, but would always want more, nibbling at nuts and cheese" - and keeps the tension so that the reader wants to keep reading to see what happens next. That I guessed a couple of the twists didn't matter at all and, while it does get a little frantic towards the climax, I thoroughly enjoyed this novel and will be putting the author's previous books on my 'to-read list'.

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