A young tarot reader in debt receives a letter saying she has inherited money from a grandmother she never knew
A letter, an inheritance and a lie
Harriet Westaway, known as Hal, reads tarot cards in a kiosk on Brighton's seafront and is barely getting by since her mother's death. She owes money to a dangerous lender, and his men have started to threaten her. Then a letter arrives: a woman named Hester Westaway has died, and Hal is named in her will. Hal is sure it is a mistake, but she is desperate enough to go to the funeral.
Who will enjoy it
Readers who enjoy atmospheric, gothic mysteries with an old house, a family full of secrets and a resourceful heroine.
What you will get
An atmospheric, gothic mystery with a cold old house, a strange family and a clever heroine slowly uncovering secrets from the past.
The Death of Mrs. Westaway Facts: Pages, Genre and Setting
Genre
Mystery & Thriller · Inheritance · Cornwall · Family secrets
Length
416 pages · ≈ 12 h
More about this book
Hal travels to Trepassen House in Cornwall, a cold, crumbling mansion overrun by magpies, where she meets the late Mrs. Westaway's three sons and a forbidding old housekeeper. She plans to use her skill at reading people, learned from years of telling fortunes, to pass as a relative and claim some money. But the more she learns, the more she suspects that she may truly be connected to the family.
Chapters from an old diary, written decades earlier by a young woman living in the house, gradually reveal what happened there. Hal must work out who her mother really was and why someone in the house seems to want her gone. The novel has a classic, almost timeless feel, with echoes of Rebecca and Agatha Christie, and the tension builds steadily. There are frightening moments and references to past cruelty and crime, but no graphic violence. The ending ties up the mystery neatly.
Moody, twisty and satisfying, a good choice for a winter evening. Fans of classic country-house mysteries will enjoy the brooding atmosphere and the slow uncovering of a family's long-buried history. About 416 pages in the Scout Press paperback.
One by One
The Woman in Cabin 10
Rebecca
The Turn of the Key
The Seven Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle
Sharp Objects
The Unpleasantness at the Bellona Club
In a Dark, Dark Wood
The Black Dahlia
Peril at End House
Hannibal Rising
Hallowe’en Party