It is no secret that I love Ruth Ware's writing and I'm pleased to say The Death of Mrs. Westaway is no exception. This book has a very different tone to her other ones but it is no less compelling because of it. There are very strong Rebecca vibes going on here but the thing it reminded me the most of is Agatha Christie.
Don't get me wrong-this is not a first class mystery by any standards. There are some twists in here but the focus is on the atmosphere and characters rather than the mystery itself. If you want to be on the edge of your seat and shocked by the ending, then this is not the book for you. But what I mean by the Agatha Christie comparison is the atmosphere of having a creepy old house, a closed set of characters who are a family and that focus on how each person fills a role within that family, secrets included. It reminds me most strongly of Five Little Pigs-there is that atmosphere of tragedy and everyone knowing the truth but no one speaking it.
While I did love this book, there were a few flaws that stopped it being a 4 star. Like I said, the thriller/mystery aspect is fairly easy to predict past a certain point and I wasn't particularly surprised by anything that happened. I also found the opening fairly slow in terms of getting our protagonist to the house. I understand needing to set up the context but it seemed to pile on a lot of detail that wasn't relevant later on. Finally, I would have liked a little more focus on Mrs. Westaway herself. I didn't need her to play more of a role in the story (being dead and all) but you don't get any detail about her character and it seems weird for everyone in the family to make vague generic statements about her not being nice, then say absolutely nothing else at all.
Rest assured, these are all minor niggles though. I still really enjoyed reading this book and I got through it very quickly (a good sign in a thriller). If you love atmospheric, character-focused tales with brilliant writing and an intriguing setting, you should definitely give this a try.
Overall Rating:
.5
No comments:
Post a Comment