A “perfectly executed suspense tale very much in the mode of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca” (The Washington Post) from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Woman in Cabin 10, The Lying Game, and The Turn of the Key.
On a day that begins like any other, Hal receives a mysterious letter bequeathing her a substantial inheritance. She realizes very quickly that the letter was sent to the wrong person—but also that the cold-reading skills she’s honed as a tarot card reader might help her claim the money.
Soon, Hal finds herself at the funeral of the deceased…where it dawns on her that there is something very, very wrong about this strange situation and the inheritance at the center of it.
Full of spellbinding menace and told in Ruth Ware’s signature suspenseful style, this is a “captivating and eerie page-turner” (The Wall Street Journal) from the Agatha Christie of our time.
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“Among other Gothic delights, there’s a crumbling mansion, a disputed inheritance, an orphaned heroine, and a grim housekeeper…The Death Of Mrs. Westaway is superb. In addition to its brooding atmosphere and labyrinthine mistaken-identity plot, this novel also gives us a heroine of real depth in Hal.”
— NPR
“[A] captivating and eerie page-turner.”
— Wall Street Journal“A perfectly executed suspense tale very much in the mode of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca."
— Washington Post“Imogen Church is a lively and versatile narrator…She captures the vulnerable but determined Hal beautifully…Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award.”
— AudioFile“Ruth Ware continues to revitalize the traditional mystery for millennial audiences in The Death of Mrs Westaway, for another mystery that functions both as tribute to the genre’s tropes and a playful revisioning of the drawing room mystery.”
— Crime Reads“A tale of a con artist headed to a family funeral that promises to be the most entertaining fictional British burial since the film Death at a Funeral first graced our screens.”
— Literary Hub“Ruth Ware’s master storytelling again sets readers on edge.”
— RT Book Reviews (4 stars)“Ware’s fourth novel is her best yet, with steadily increasing tension, a complicated twisty mystery, and a sharp, sympathetic heroine who’s up to the challenge of solving it…[For] readers who love immersing themselves in well-crafted, gothic-tinged suspense.”
— Library Journal (starred review)“Ware continues to hone her gift for the slow unspooling of unease and mystery, developing a consistent sense of threat that’s pervasive and gripping…Expertly paced, expertly crafted.”
— Kirkus Reviews (starred review)“One of today’s most popular suspense writers twists the knife quite expertly here…The labyrinth Ware has devised here is much more winding than expected, with reveals even on the final pages…a clever heroine and an atmospheric setting, accented by wisps of meaning that drift from the tarot cards.”
— Booklist (starred review)“Evocative prose, artfully shaded characters, and a creepy, claustrophobic atmosphere keep the pages of this explosive family drama turning.”
— Publishers WeeklyRuth Ware is the author of that mysteries and crime thrillers, any of which have made the New York Times and Toronto Globe and Mail’s bestsellers list. One by One was shortlisted for the CWA Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award and was named a best book of the year by the The Observer (London) and Barnes&Noble.com. Visit her at RuthWare.com or follow her on Twitter @RuthWareWriter.
Imogen Church, an Earphones Award-winning narrator, trained as an actress at the Drama Centre London, under Christopher Fettes, Yat Malmgren, and Reuven Adiv. Since graduating, she has worked extensively in theater, film, commercials, and comedy sketch work, and she also works regularly as a voice artist. As a screenwriter, her first screenplay won the 2009 award for Best Feature Screenplay at the Reel Women Film Festival in Los Angeles.