Book Review - Ruth Ware's The Death of Mrs. Westaway
The Death of Mrs. Westaway by Ruth Ware
Published by: Gallery/Scout Press
Publication Date: May 29th, 2018
Format: Hardcover, 384 Pages
Rating: ★★
To Buy
Hal is destitute. She has been eking out a living reading Tarot cards for the punters on Brighton Beach but she's nowhere near as good as her mother Maggie was at this. But Maggie died tragically before Hal's eighteenth birthday and Hal had to take out some loans from some disreputable people and they won't let her forget that. Even if she's paid it all back, with interest. Then a letter arrives that could change everything. Hal has somehow been "identified" as the granddaughter of a Mrs. Westaway and stands to inherit, well, something. Really, anything would be fine. Only, Hal knows this woman couldn't possibly be her grandmother. Her whole family was Maggie and Maggie is gone. But what's the harm in getting out of town for a few days and seeing if she can convince the family that she's a Westaway long enough for her to make off with a few hundred pounds. Just enough to help ease her situation. Maybe relocate away from Brighton? It's not like she'd be taking advantage of them, they're probably wealthy and what's a few hundred pounds to them when to her it could change her life? The only problem is she hasn't been left a few hundred pounds, she's been left everything. Knowing that she isn't the missing granddaughter Mrs. Westaway was looking for Hal is ready to pack it all in until she is given a picture. A picture that proves that her mother knew the Westaway siblings. Could she really be related to Mrs. Westaway? Could the inheritance be rightfully hers by some quirk of fate? But the grand estate of Trepassen has many secrets. Maggie came to Trepassen an innocent and ended up pregnant with Hal. Unwilling to divulge the name of Hal's father, whom Hal was always told was a one-night stand, Maggie was locked away in the attic. She was in fact locked up in the same room that Maggie is staying in. That can't be a coincidence. What was the reason Maggie never returned to Trepassen and does that put Hal in danger now?
Tarot cards, check. Mysterious letter bequeathing an inheritance, check. Stately, if slightly run down, manor house, check. Right there are the official bullet points that made me sit up and take notice of The Death of Mrs. Westaway. Well, that and the fact that it kept being compared to Daphne Du Maurier, a trap I fall for way too often. She is without equal and I need to keep reminding myself of that. But while none of those bullet points are wrong, they are also very misleading. This book isn't the least bit charming or Gothic, it's prosaic. Hal barely makes a living reading Tarot cards for the tourists. She gets a letter about an inheritance that she's sure is mistaken while obviously it's not. But she assumes she can pull off the con because she's so good at reading people. It's like a boring heist but with snow. I'm sorry, but if you're going to go for the grab bag of Gothic goodies could something have been at least slightly menacing? Even throwing Hal up into the creepy neither regions of the house elicited barely a shudder from me. What's more is that I figured out everything too easily. I'm not saying I'm a savant when it comes to crime solving, but I am knowledgeable enough that if you're a writer who isn't very good at disguising your clues, leaving them a little too open to the elements, well, I'll pounce on them like a cat on catnip. I had the killer down within five minutes of them appearing on the scene. What's more, I was able to pick out the motive way too easily. There are some "tricks" that work only in literature because there's wiggle room for mistaken identities that aren't there in a visual medium. The most successful use I've seen of this in recent years was in Kate Morton's The Secret Keeper. She nailed it. This, this doesn't nail it. What's also annoying is that during the reveal there is a major blunder. Hal's mother Maggie is trying to escape a dangerous situation in a flashback and runs out onto the iced over lake. In July. Yes, watch out for that dangerous July ice everyone. And there's no way it could have been a mistake because the whole scene is set in summer and there's flowers and a picnic and ICE! Yeah... just... whatever. In fact, whatever is kind of my general feeling for this book overall. I was entertained but that was all.
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